


We Had It Good There For Awhile

by ChancellorGriffin



Category: The 100 (TV), The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dream Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Smut, White House, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 00:19:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5948875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/pseuds/ChancellorGriffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a teenage daughter and a job as White House Press Secretary, Abby Griffin's life is already plenty complicated by the time her charming ex-husband returns from four years abroad and winds up in her press room.  Jake's unexpected reappearance brings up complicated feelings from the past, while igniting a series of events that culminate years later, at the end of President Bartlet's term in office, after a front-page story lands White House Communications Director Marcus Kane - for whom Abby's feelings are <i>also<i></i></i> decidedly less than simple - on the wrong side of the newly-appointed Director of the CIA.</p><p>STARRING:<br/>Abby Griffin as Press Secretary C.J. Cregg<br/>Marcus Kane as Communications Director Toby Ziegler<br/>Jake Griffin as Washington Post Reporter Danny Concannon<br/>Jackson as Assistant to the Press Secretary Carol Fitzpatrick<br/>Bellamy Blake as Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn<br/>Jasper and Monty as Ed and Larry<br/>Clarke Griffin as Clarke Griffin<br/>Thelonious Jaha as Chief of Staff Leo McGarry<br/>Callie Cartwig as Congresswoman Andy Wyatt<br/>Charles Pike as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency<br/>and President Josiah Bartlet as himself</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Kind of Day Has It Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [convenientmisfires](https://archiveofourown.org/users/convenientmisfires/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She remembers Bellamy’s laugh. It’s etched into her brain. It’s branded on her skin, like a scar.  
> Because it's the last good thing that happens for a long, long time after that.  
> Bellamy laughs, and then there's a gunshot. He surges forward, grabs her in his arms, pulls her down to the pavement, and the world goes dark."

  **PROLOGUE**

 

  **MONDAY, JUNE 9TH, 2009 - 8:40 P.M.**

**PRESIDENTIAL TOWN HALL (ROSSLYN, VIRGINIA)**

_Afterwards, these are the things she remembers._

_There's a crowd outside the town hall. There's a rope line. The President can’t resist a rope line. He was going to go home – there's a women’s softball game on television he wanted to watch.  Abby remembers the softball game, the boys have been giving him shit about it all day. But at the last minute he decides to stay a few minutes and shake some hands._

_That’s how the shooters get a clear shot._

_She remembers everything up until the first gunshot, clear as crystal. Because up until that moment it's just another day._

_They walk out of the building together, the whole staff. Abby's near the back, letting Bellamy give her a good-natured hard time about the fact that he’s just discovered her Secret Service nickname. The guys all got cool, dramatic Secret Service names, she's protesting. The President’s is “Eagle,” of course, while Bellamy’s is “Delinquent,” which he enjoys immensely (he has a reputation among the agents for being notoriously difficult to guard; he hates having a Secret Service detail). Thelonious Jaha's is "Chancellor," which is appropriately self-important, while Marcus Kane’s is “Gladiator," which is appropriately heroic.  
_

_Abby’s is “Cinnamon Roll.”_

_“I’m sure it’s something about hair color,” says Bellamy helpfully, “like you know, when you wear it up in a twist thing –“_

_“I hate you so much.”_

_“And not at all because you’re tiny and cute and adorable and the Secret Service are – “_

_“A bunch of misogynist patriarchal jackasses?”_

_“Men, I was gonna say, but sure.”_

_“You’re enjoying this too much.”_

_“I’m gonna start calling you Cinnamon Roll.”_

_“I’m going to destroy you,” she mutters, as Bellamy roars with laughter._

_She remembers Bellamy’s laugh. It’s etched into her brain. It’s branded on her skin, like a scar._

_Because it's the last good thing that happens for a long, long time after that._

_Bellamy laughs, and then there's a gunshot. He surges forward, grabs her in his arms, pulls her down to the pavement, and the world goes dark._

* * * * *

_She comes to with a searing pain in her head and the taste of blood in her mouth. Bellamy has set her down behind one of the limos in the Presidential motorcade. Everything is noise and light and chaos, the site crawling with agents and medical personnel and ambulances and reporters. When she opens her eyes, Jackson spots her and comes running._

_“Abby!” he shouts over the screaming din of voices and sirens. “Are you okay?”_

_“I’m fine!” she calls back. “I hit my head. Where’s the President?”_

_“They got the President and Chief of Staff in the car,” says Bellamy, racing over to her, a uniformed medic in tow._

_“Are you Abby Griffin?” the medic asks._

_“Yes.”_

_“Ma’am, I’m going to need to check you for a concussion –“_

_“I just hit my head, I’m fine,” she says. “Bellamy pulled me down behind the car. Are our people okay?”_

_“Everyone’s fine,” says Jackson. “Secret Service got the shooters from the roof, our people are on their way back to the White House, we were all just worried about you. You were out cold for a few minutes.”_

_“Where’s Marcus?”_

_“He was in the car with Thelonious,” says Bellamy reassuringly._

_“No, he wasn’t,” Jackson corrects him anxiously, “I was there. Thelonious' car had him and his security detail and that’s it.”_

_“Nobody’s seen him?” Abby exclaims, panic rising in her chest as she struggled to her feet._

_“Ma’am, I need you to stay where you are,” says the medic, “you’ve had a bad fall.”_

_“Have you seen Marcus Kane?” she asks him desperately. “Has anyone seen Marcus Kane?”_

_“Not that I know of, ma’am, but there’s people everywhere. We’ll find him.”_

_“I can’t – I’m not –“ She pulls away from the medic. “We have to find Marcus,” she says, voice rising higher and higher in panic._

_“I’ll go find an agent,” says Jackson, taking off at a run. Bellamy looks at Abby. “Split up,” he says, “I’ll check in the cars, you go back up towards the building.” She nods, pulls away from the medic and takes off at a run._

_“Marcus!” she shouts, shoving her way through an endless crush of bodies – weeping civilians being questioned by the police, journalists and photographers everywhere, paramedics and Secret Service agents and police officers. So many people but none of them are him. “Marcus!” she calls again, nearly colliding with a pair of cops as she sprints up the stairs back towards the building._

_And there he is, seated on the pavement, leaning back against the wall._

_“Marcus!” she snaps, her relief bursting out of her in anger. “Jesus, Marcus, didn’t you hear me shouting for you?” He doesn't answer. “Marcus,” she says again, wondering if he's in shock. She kneels down in front of him, laying her hand on the side of his face. He's pale and glassy-eyed and doesn't look like he sees her. “Marcus,” she says again, slapping his face lightly. His eyes flutter closed. “Marcus, wake up,” she tells him. “Open your eyes.”_

_She's kneeling at his side, one hand on his face and the other braced, for balance, on his chest, and she's so intently focused on getting his eyes to open that she doesn’t notice, for a long moment, that her hand is suddenly warm and wet._

_She looks down, heart pounding, her body going cold all over._

Blood.

_Blood on his white shirt, blood on her hands, blood everywhere._

_Marcus Kane has been shot._

_“I need a doctor!” she screams as loudly as she could, the words shredding her throat as they force themselves out of her._

_Bellamy, a whole crowd away, hears her voice and_ knows _and comes running, just as Jackson sprints up the stairs towards her with a team of paramedics in tow._

_“Marcus, you have to wake up,” she begs him, as his body begins to slide down towards the ground and she catches him in her arms. “Marcus, open your eyes.”_

_“I’m . . . so . . . cold,” he chokes out in a broken murmur, and she feels tears rush down her face._

_“I’m right here,” she says, as the paramedics push her aside and hoist him onto a stretcher. “I’m right here.”_

* * * * *

_She remembers flashes of the hospital._

_Medics tearing down the hall at a sprint, shouting at each other as she and Bellamy race along behind._

_“I’m right here,” she reassures Marcus over and over, but he isn’t there, he isn’t with her, he's awake but he's somewhere else._

_“I’m not supposed to be in this meeting,” she hears him mumble, struggling to get up from the gurney._

_“Marcus, I need you to stay still.”_

_“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m not – I’m not –“_

_“Marcus, honey, don’t talk,” she pleads, taking his hand, racing as fast as she could to keep up with the gurney._

_“I need to get to New Hampshire,” he cries out, a jolt of panic or shock coursing through his whole body, and she seizes his hand with tears in her eyes._

_“You went to New Hampshire, Marcus,” she says, her voice ragged with emotion. “We both did. You came and got me.”_

_He looks right at her but doesn’t see her. His eyes are somewhere else._

_“Okay, I need everyone out of the room!” barks the doctor as they crash through the swinging doors of the E.R.  
_

_“Is he going to make it?” asks Bellamy tightly, and Abby sees him trying very hard to swallow back tears._

_“Everyone out of the room,” the doctor says again, which isn’t an answer, and the Secret Service has to drag Bellamy and Abby away as they close the emergency room doors behind them._


	2. The War At Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Honest to God, Jake, sometimes I forget why I married you.'  
> 'No, you don’t,' he said, and that cocky half-smile was equal parts sexy and infuriating, leaving her torn between wanting to make out with him and wanting to dump the rest of her drink on his head."

** **

  **TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 2010 - 8 P.M.**

**FOUR SEASONS HOTEL BAR**

 

“You look good,” said Jake, rising from his seat at the small corner table to kiss her on both cheeks.

“You look _tan_ ,” replied Abby, settling into the chair across from him and catching the eye of the waiter. “Scotch on the rocks with a twist, please.”

“Why don’t you start with the one I already ordered and we’ll see where the night takes us,” said Jake, which was when she noticed that there was already a Scotch on the rocks with a twist sitting neatly on a black paper napkin right next to her water glass.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I didn't see that."

"Clearly," said Jake.  She ignored him, but flashed a charming smile at the waiter.

“Sorry,” she said lightly. “Long day.”

“Not a problem, Ms. Griffin,” he said with a polite smile, and disappeared to leave them alone.

“I always wondered how that worked,” Jake said thoughtfully. “You keeping your last name and everything.”

“What do you mean, how it _works_?”

“The President’s Catholic," he pointed out.  "You’re divorced.”

“So is Thelonious Jaha. So’s Marcus Kane.”

“They don’t have to deal with the last names question.”

“What, you think because I’m a woman – “

“I’m not saying _I_ think that, I’m saying – “

“He’s not _Mel Gibson_ , Jake, he’s a normal person who goes to church, and we've got eight weeks until the midterms and I haven't slept in like . . . a year, so if you just called me up to give me shit I'm going to take this drink to go."

"You can't take a drink to go," he said, "this isn't Vegas."

"Always need the last word, don't you?"

"What can I say.  I'm still the man you married."

"You're also still the man I divorced."

"Well, that's hard to deny," he shrugged, conceding, with that infuriatingly charming half-smile she knew so well, and she was exactly half amused and half annoyed.  Which, of course, was exactly how he wanted it.

_Dammit._

“How’s Clarke?” he went on, swiftly navigating a change of subject before she got so annoyed that it stopped being fun.  After all these years Jake still knew exactly how to thread the needle.

“She’s great. In the middle of midterms, so she’s basically a zombie, but great. You should call her.”

“I did, I called from the airport. She was out. I left a message.”

“You should see her.”

“I will.”

“She was excited you were back in town.”

“Well, that makes one of you.”

“Yes, it does,” she agreed pointedly, which made him laugh, and she hated herself for it a little bit, how impossible he still made it to be annoyed at him when he was laughing.  God, she used to love that laugh.  She felt herself softening, just the tiniest bit, and took a long drink of Scotch to steel herself.

“Jake, what am I doing here?” she asked pointedly, setting the glass down. He shrugged.

“I wanted to see you.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It could be a reason.”

“It _could_ be, but it’s not.”

“We were married for ten years, Abby. I’m in town, I just want to see my ex-wife and my kid, what’s with the third degree?”

“It’s never _just_ anything with you, Jake, and you know it. What do you want?”

He paused for a moment and took a long drink of his wine before he answered. She waited.

“I wanted to tell you,” he said, “that I got a new job.”

“A new job,” she repeated blankly.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not with the _Post_ anymore?”

“No, I’m still with the _Post_.”

“You’re not the Politics and Current Affairs Editor anymore?”

“No, I’m still the Politics and Current Affairs Editor.”

“Jake, I don’t have time for Twenty Questions."

“The President’s new deputy EPA advisor – “

“Oh, _Jesus Christ_ , Jake –“

“The President’s new deputy EPA advisor – “

“ _They moved you back to the press room_?”

“ _I_ moved me back to the press room.  Starting in January.”

“Why?”

“I miss looking at your face.”

“Jake –“

“And suits. I miss wearing suits.”

“I don’t have time for this.”

“I spent four years embedded in sub-Saharan Africa filing stories on climate change, everyone wears shorts all the time, you feel your sense of style starting to slip, you know?”

“Hilarious.”

“I mean how many days in a row can a man wear khaki shorts before he starts to feel like he’s not quite living up to both of those Masters degrees.”

“Well, on behalf of everyone who doesn’t have to stare at your legs anymore, congratulations,” she snapped, signaling the bartender. One Scotch was not going to be enough for this conversation.

“The President’s new deputy EPA advisor,” he went on smoothly as if she hadn’t spoken, “served as Chief of Staff for not one, not two, but _three_ U.S. senators with ties to the oil lobby, but Bartlet _still_ put her on the exploratory committee for H.R. 151, _and_ word on the street is she’s working with Marcus Kane on drafting the language for the State of the Union on drilling in the Arctic National Forest, so yeah, I'm back in the press room because holding the White House accountable is a priority for this paper, just like it should be to the general public, and everyone you go to work with every day, so the _Post_ wants to know if you have a comment for – “

“You’re kidding me.”

“ – a comment for Sunday’s cover story –“

“You are _fucking kidding me_.”

“ – about the Bartlet administration's failure to deliver on any of the promises in either of his campaigns about actually prioritizing protection of the environment.”

“You know, every time I think there’s a chance you might have changed –“

“Abby –“

“I have a _lot_ of comments, Jake,” she fired back, as the waiter set a new drink down next to her and then hastily scurried away before the bullets started flying, “like about the staggering amount of hypocrisy it takes for you to presume you know anything about the job that I do, or how you can sit there atop your high horse and moralize at me about campaign promises when you're not the one fighting land wars in three different countries and trying to pass a landmark piece of education reform through a Republican Senate.  But unfortunately this is the kind of classy place that discourages its patrons from screaming obscenities, and I’m the lady whose face is on the evening news whenever the President your paper enjoys trashing so gleefully has to deploy Americans to fight terrorists in Middle Eastern countries whose names your readers can’t pronounce, which means I can’t make those comments with my out-loud voice.  I assure you, however, the party going on in my head right now is quite something.”

“It’s a reasonable – “

“I mean it, Jake, they’re up there doing the Macarena, there’s a chocolate fountain, they just brought out Spin the Bottle – “

“Abby – “

“You call me up after _four years_ of no contact except the bare minimum of emails to make sure your daughter knows that you’re still technically _alive_ , you tell me you want to have drinks, you take me to the bar where we had our first date, and then you come at me for a comment _about the President’s deputy EPA advisor_? Honest to God, Jake, sometimes I forget why I married you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, and that cocky half-smile was equal parts sexy and infuriating, leaving her torn between wanting to make out with him and wanting to dump the rest of her drink on his head. But instead she knocked it back in one fell swoop, grabbed her purse, and stood up.

“I’m leaving."

“What if it wasn’t about the Sunday cover story?” he asked, and it stopped her.

“What are you talking about?”

“What if I did just want to have drinks?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that have been nice.”

“No, I mean – what if I wanted, like, to have dinner with you.”

“Then we should have had dinner.”

“Okay, I’m gonna try this again, but slower," he said, with something in his eyes she couldn't read.  "I would like to have dinner with you.”

“Then you shouldn’t have asked me for a comment on your story," she shot back at him, "because now this isn’t a date anymore, it’s me being seen in public by a waiter who knows my name, in a meeting with a _Post_ reporter, right before the midterms, and Thelonious is going to call me out on the carpet in tomorrow’s staff meeting because he’s so goddamn paranoid about leaks that he’s sailed right past Joe McCarthy territory and veered into Fox Mulder, which means I’m going to have to waste at least half of my designated seven minutes explaining that it was a trap, which cuts valuable time out of my ability to actually, you know, do my job.”

“You said ‘date.’”

“What?”

“You said once I asked you for a comment, this wasn’t a date anymore.”

She froze. 

“It’s a figure of speech," she finally said, a little flustered.

“Did you think it was a date when you said yes to it?”

_Dammit._

“I’m leaving now,” she snapped, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair.

“Have dinner with me,” he said, as though it was the most ordinary request in the world.

“No.”

“I won’t mention the EPA.”

“If I had a dollar for every man who told me _that_ – “

“I miss you, Abby,” he said suddenly, and it was the first thing he’d said all night that sounded completely true, which is why it stopped her halfway in and halfway out of her coat, staring at him in blank astonishment with no idea how to proceed for a long, long moment until she finally recovered.

“Well, now you get to see my face in the press room every day,” she retorted crisply, recovering as fast as she could as she buttoned her coat. “Congratulations.”

“Before you go,” he said, “just so I get formal confirmation –“

“Of the fact that I would like to shove you down a well?”

“Abby – “

“’The White House has no comment at this time.’”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, as though this was exactly what he’d expected, and _Jesus Christ_ how did this man still manage after all these years to remain lodged so firmly under her skin?

“Then this entire infuriating conversation served only to cost the _Washington Post_ two overpriced glasses of Scotch,” she retorted.  "So yeah, this is _clearly_ a better use of those two Masters degrees.”

“Good to see you too, Abby.”

“I liked you a lot better when you were a continent away.”

“Can I print that?”

“No.”

“It’s Kane, isn’t it?” he said suddenly, startling her so badly she almost walked into a table.

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Kane.”

“There is no me and Kane, Jake.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

She turned back to look at him then, irritated at herself, because of course he’d known she would.

“Are you talking as a reporter or a jealous ex-husband?”

“Neither.”

“Jake – “

“I’m a curious but emotionally uninvolved citizen.”

“That . . . does not sound like you at all.”

“You’ve known him a long time.”

“Yeah,” she said, folding her arms. “I knew him when we were married.”

“But he was married then too.”

“So what,” said Abby, irritated, “you think Callie was the only thing keeping me from cheating on you with Marcus Kane?”

“No,” said Jake reasonably, “that’s not what I said. I’m asking if the fact that you’ve known him a long time, and you’ve both been single for a long time – “

“That’s . . . overselling it slightly – “

“And you’re seen in public together a lot –“

“We’re seen in public together every time the President leaves the building, Jake, what kind of women are you hanging out with that you could confuse a hot date with a keynote address to the National Education Association at their annual conference in Des Moines?”

“You looked pretty cozy together at the Kennedy Center gala," he said cheerfully.  "I like him.  Kane.  He's a good guy.  If you're gonna date a coworker you could do a lot worse.  God fucking bless those trauma surgeons, by the way.  He looks good as new." _  
_

"I'm not dating any of my coworkers, Jake, and it's irresponsible of you to say that out loud in a building this close to the White House."

"Okay," he said agreeably, "if you say so."

Unbelievable.

“We were standing next to each other with the rest of the President’s staff in a lobby with like nine hundred other people, Jake, how does that count as ‘cozy?’”

He didn’t say anything, just unfolded a copy of Thursday’s paper – open to the society pages – and set it down on the table next to her now-empty glass of Scotch.

She didn’t have to go back over and look at it. She knew exactly what she’d see.

The President in white tie and tails, the First Lady in a silver sequined Vera Wang, surrounded by a mob of journalists and photographers as they shook hands with Yo-Yo Ma, whose Presidential Medal of Honor was now pinned to the lapel of his jacket. And over their shoulder, applauding with vigor, a crowd of men in suits – the President’s senior staff – flanking a petite brunette woman in an emerald-green Michael Kors.

A woman who, in this photo, was throwing back her head with laughter as the tall, handsome, dark-haired man in a flawless tuxedo next to her leaned down very close to murmur something into her ear.

She’d spent altogether too much time on Thursday morning looking at that photo while she drank her morning coffee. She knew _exactly_ what Jake saw.

“There is no me and Kane,” she said again, with somewhat less force this time, and he raised an eyebrow but let it go.

“Fine,” he conceded. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“All right then. I’ll drop it.”

“Good.”

“You look good together,” he said, looking back down at the picture.  "That's a great dress."

“Call your daughter,” she said, and left without looking back behind her.

* * *

**TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 2010 - 8:45 P.M.**

**OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY  
**

 

When she got back to the office, Bellamy was stretched out on her couch with a beer in his hand.  Beside him, Marcus sat in one of the chairs in front of Abby's desk with his feet up on the other one, a beer in his hand too.

"Hello, people who do not work here," she said irritably, pulling off her coat and hanging it on the rack.

"Where you been?" said Bellamy.

"I had a thing," she said.  "Wait.  No.  Hang on.  _I_ get the first question.  What are you doing in my office?"

"We're taking a break."

"From what?"

"Roosevelt Room.  Polling breakdowns.  They need us back in twenty," said Marcus, handing her a beer.  She shook her head.

"I already had two glasses of Scotch," she said.  "No more booze if I have to stare at polling data all night long.  Have you guys been just hanging out in my office the whole time I was gone?"

"No," said Bellamy and "Yes," said Marcus.  She sighed.

"Your couch is better than mine," Bellamy protested.

"My couch is the same as your couch."

"My couch has boxes on it."

"There it is. Jackson!"

Jackson popped his head around the corner.  "You're back," he said.  "I thought you were going home."

"You thought I was going home but you just let Bugs and Daffy wander in and hang out in here unsupervised, you know, going through my things?"

"They weren't going through your things, they were taking a break."

"I don't feel like you're really on my side here."

"You were supposed to go home."

"Well, I didn't."

"You've been here since six."

"So has everybody.  Have they sent over the new numbers from Iowa and New Hampshire?"

"Jaha has them now."

"Can you get a copy from Maya?"

"Sure.  When do you need it by?"

"Well, if we're in the Roosevelt Room in twenty minutes to go over them -"

"Sometime before that?"

"That would be great."

"I'll call her now."

"And the next time Marcus and Bellamy are throwing a frat party in my office while I’m out of the building can you, you know –"

"Push them out your window?"

"You're the best."

Bellamy finished the last of his beer, tossed the bottle into the recycling bin next to Abby's mini-fridge, stood up and stretched.  "Break's over," he pronounced.  "You guys coming?"

"In a minute."

"I'm gonna talk her through the new numbers," said Marcus.  "Tell Thelonious we'll be there in twenty."

Jackson popped his head back in the door.  "I'm going to go grab the numbers, and Maya says to ask what you want on your pizza.  She's calling it in now."

"From the place with the -"

"No, the other one."

"Tell her, I don't know, I can't think right now.  Something with chicken."

"I'm heading back in," said Bellamy.  "See you in a few."

"Yeah," said Abby, and flopped down on the couch with a sigh the moment he was gone.  Marcus watched her for a moment, greatly interested.

"What was the thing?"

"What?"

"You said you had a thing."

"Oh, yeah," she said, sitting back up.  "Get this. Guess who the _Washington Post_ just moved back to the White House Press Room."

He stared at her, eyes wide.  _"Oh no."_

"Oh, yes," she sighed, rubbing her temples wearily.

"You’re kidding."

"Nope."

"You’re _kidding."_

"I am most emphatically not."

"Jesus," said Marcus.  "And he just told you tonight?"

"I didn’t even know he was back in the States."

"He just called you up out of nowhere and said, ‘Surprise, I’m back and now you have to look at my face every day?’"

"Oh, it was worse than that," she said dryly.

"What could be worse than that?"

"They’re running a story in the Sunday edition about the President's failure to keep his campaign promises to the environmental lobby."

"He asked you for a _quote_?"

"Yep."

"Your ex-husband rolls back into town after four years to tell you he’s back in your life and oh by the way, will you be a source for his first big shiny new story."  Marcus shook his head.  "Unbelievable."

Abby wasn't sure why she felt so suddenly defensive on Jake's behalf, but something in Marcus' tone rubbed her the wrong way, a little.  "He’s not wrong about our environmental policy, Marcus," she said, a little tersely.

"I know."

"We couldn’t get fuel efficiency standards through Congress, we appointed a deputy EPA advisor who supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve –"

"I know."

"These aren’t like deeply-buried secrets he has to dig up, we’ve dropped balls all over the place."

"Yeah."

"I just wish it wasn’t my ex-husband sitting there in the front row grilling me about it."

"You can move him out of the front row," he reminded her wryly.

Yeah, but that just looks petty," she sighed.  "Then it’s gonna be a _thing_."

"It won’t be a thing."

"Everyone in that room knows we were married, Marcus, and Jake Griffin got this job because he's the _Post_ 's most-trusted reporter.  They're not fucking around with us.  They _want_ me off my game in there.  And the second I do anything that looks like either favoritism or picking on him, that becomes the story."  She leaned her head back against the couch with a weary sigh.  "God, I wish he’d stayed in Johannesburg." 

Marcus wordlessly pulled a beer out of the fridge, pried off the top and handed it to her. "How's he look?"

"He looks good."

They sat and drank their beers for awhile.  She'd always liked this about him, how easy it was to be silent.  How she never felt like she had to keep talking, had to press her palms outward to keep awkwardness and discomfort from closing in.  She could just sit, and he would sit, and they were both entirely comfortable, and it was all so simple.

She watched him for a few moments as he busied himself with peeling the label off his beer bottle.  He'd been here since six a.m. too and his suit was beginning to show it.  His jacket was long since gone, and if he remembered whose office he'd left it in she'd be very much surprised.  Marcus was forever leaving jackets on the back of everyone's chairs.  His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and his tie was off, which meant he'd been writing, and his hair had the slightly disheveled look of a man who'd eaten every meal today at his desk.  Still, there was something about his stillness - the way the warm golden glow of the lamp on her desk and the ice-blue light from her computer screen met in the middle and cast uneven shadows on his face - that she found wonderfully soothing.  She didn't want to go to the Roosevelt Room and grill Jasper and Monty about why they were suddenly down three in the California 42nd.  She just wanted to live forever in the next five minutes until Jackson came back with the polling data, where she could sit here with Marcus Kane in perfect peace and quiet.

Then, "You think he wants to get back together?" asked Marcus suddenly, with a casual offhand air that didn't fool her, and she suddenly realized that was what he'd been thinking about the entire time.

"I don’t know," she said, her voice a little uncertain.

"What does Clarke think?"

"I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it," Abby said.  "We texted a little, but she's been in class, and then I was here."

"Yeah."

"He called her, but I don’t think she’s seen him yet."

"I’m sure she’s excited to have her dad back."

"She's 14, so of course she's not going to show it, but yes, she is."

"Are you?"  She gave an exasperated, what-do- _you_ -think chuckle and rolled her eyes.   "I don’t mean about the press room, Abby," he went on, a strange note in his voice, "I mean about –"

"What?"

"You and Jake."

"There is no me and Jake."

"Okay," he said politely, not remotely convinced.

"There isn’t," she protested again, her voice rising slightly in defensiveness.

"Fine," he conceded.

"Fine."

"Except, no," he said suddenly, words bursting out as if he was unable to help himself, "because we’ve got midterms in two weeks and we’re down in twelve more districts since the last round of polling and you’ve been glued to your desk until midnight same as the rest of us - until Jake calls you and asks if you want to go hang out and have a drink with him and doesn’t even give a reason."

"What are you _talking_ about?" she said wearily.

"You didn’t know about the new job, or the Sunday cover story, until you got there," said Marcus.

"So?"

"So you went because you wanted to see him," he said simply, and it was so true that the protest she was about to make died on her lips, and she deflated a little.  "He’s your daughter’s father," Marcus went on gently, "he’s been in your life a long time, I’m not saying it's a terrible idea. If you were getting back together."

"We’re not," she insisted.

"I'm not saying it's a terrible idea," he repeated, and there was that strange note in his voice again, as though he were prodding her to say something, to give a particular right answer, but she wasn't altogether sure she knew what it was."

"We’re not getting back together, Marcus."

"Okay," he said, with a conciliatory gesture that meant he was dropping it.  "Good."

She sat up suddenly.

"What does that mean?"

"Forget it."

"What do you mean, 'good?'"

"I didn't mean anything."

"Marcus –" she began, just as Jackson came into the doorway holding a stack of file folders. 

"Polling breakdowns state by state," he said, "and Thelonious needs you in the Roosevelt Room now."

"Come on," said Marcus, holding out his hand to help her up off the low sofa.  "We don’t want to keep them waiting."

She watched him carefully for the rest of the night, but whatever the thing was she'd heard in his voice for a moment, it was so very much gone that she thought she'd imagined it.


	3. Enemies Foreign and Domestic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'Can this be one of those nights where we get sloshed and forget we work together?' she asked, not looking at him, still staring straight ahead at the crowded ballroom, at the President, at everyone in the room who wasn’t the man standing next to her.

**MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2011 - 8:15 A.M.  
**

**WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING ROOM**

 

Of all the mornings in a lengthy career that Abby Griffin had found herself decidedly not looking forward to, her ex-husband’s first day back in the press briefing room was well up at the top of the list.

“Do you need moral support?” asked Jackson as he walked her down the hallway.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want you getting stressed out at the podium.”

“I’m fine, Jackson.”

“He’s going to try to throw you.”

“He always tries to throw me.”

“Not entirely without success.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on the side of you not getting baited on national television into saying something that will get you fired.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Abby –“

“I’m fine, Jackson.”

“I’ll be right here if you need me,” he promised, and she pushed open the door where the White House Press Corps was waiting.

“It’s a light morning, everyone,” she said as she took the podium, “and we've got two more briefings today so let's keep this one short.  I’m going to give you what I’ve got on the bill signing and the State Dinner and then take a few questions.” Hands went up all around the room. “Harper. Go ahead.”

“You didn’t do the new person thing.”

“What?”

“When we have new faces in the room,” said Harper, her expression entirely innocent. “You do the thing.”

“I’m not doing the thing.”

“You do the hello-and-welcome thing,” chimed in Monroe from two rows behind her.

“I’m not doing the thing, guys.”

“I hope you realize if you don’t do the thing we’re all going to write about how you refused to do the thing.”

“And I hope _you_ realize how many nights I go to bed dreaming about locking you all in this room and lighting it on fire,” said Abby, which made them all laugh. She sighed. _“Fine,”_ she grumbled. “Fine. I will do the thing. Jake, stand up.”

Jake, who was seated comfortably in the front row, as relaxed as if he were at home on the couch watching football, rose lazily from his chair and waited expectantly. Everyone in the room was enjoying this way too much.

“On behalf of the President of the United States and the White House staff, I would like to formally welcome Jake Griffin of the _Washington Post_ to the White House Press Corps,” she recited with very bad grace. “The President thanks you for your service on behalf of the American people and looks forward to a long and productive partnership, which is easy for him to say as someone who was never married to you.” The whole room burst into laughter, Jake louder than anyone else.

“She’s good,” said Bellamy approvingly, coming up next to Marcus where he stood watching in the glassed-in observation room behind the TV cameras. “That was the right approach.”

Marcus nodded. “Nailed it,” he agreed. “She’s acknowledging it, she’s making a joke, she looks completely at ease.”

“Plus they all really like and respect her, but they also enjoy occasionally giving her shit,” Bellamy observed. “She’s putting to rest any accusations of either favoritism or persecution by setting it up right away that she’s completely comfortable and just finds his presence mildly annoying. Playing it off light was the right tactic.”

“She’s a pro,” said Marcus, watching Abby command the room with complete ease. She was wearing one of his favorite outfits today, an emerald green wool dress with a black blazer and a pair of tall black high-heeled boots, her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She was a beautiful woman, and confident in it, but he was the only one who knew her well enough to know that the extra care she took in her appearance today was a sign of hidden vulnerability.  She always got anxious on days when the fashion magazines were issued temporary press credentials.

“The First Lady will be wearing a Calvin Klein silver-and-black gown with a matching bolero jacket,” Abby was saying in response to a question from _Vogue_.

“Shoes?”

“I believe she’ll be wearing shoes, yes.”

“Abby –“

“Black suede-and-velvet Manolo Blahnik slides with a rhinestone and mother-of-pearl toe buckle.”

“Accessories?”

“Gabriel Sanchez freshwater pearl necklace with tourmaline beads. I’m also told to inform you she will be carrying a Christina Bomba silk pleated organdy drawstring evening bag. Anything else? No? We can do real news now? Good.” She pulled out the sheaf of papers Jackson had handed her on her way in. “Okay, I’ve got a few notes on the bill signing that are new from yesterday’s briefing. At ten forty-five tomorrow morning, President Bartlet will sign into law the Every Student Succeeds Act, the comprehensive education reform package he has been crafting for the past three years alongside a bipartisan coalition of members of both the House and Senate. Pool photos only, and afterwards he and the Senate Majority Leader will take questions in the Mural Room. Also, the President will sign the bill with fifteen pens, and I guess someone in my office wanted you to know that.”

Jake’s hand went up.

“Abby?”

“Jake, tell me you don’t have a question about the pens.”

“Abby, I have a question about the pens.”

The chuckles from all around the room just made it worse. She heaved a dramatic sigh.

“The President signs pieces of major legislation with multiple pens which are engraved as keepsakes by the White House and sent as thank-you gifts to the bill’s co-authors and supporters.”

“Is it like one pen per letter, or –“

“I really don’t know, Jake.”

“Can you find out?”

“Seriously?”

“It’s a very important piece of information the _Washington Post_ would like to have.”

“Is it? Really? Or are you just having a little fun with me on your first day back?”

“I can do both.”

"Because you realize the second you ask me to look into something, I have to actually look into it, and I'm a busy important woman with lots of things to do."

"I'm just _incredibly_ interested in anything you can tell me about the pens."

“Fine. Anyone who wants more information about the damn pens, come back to my office after the briefing and I’ll get it for you. By the way, I’d like everyone in the room to know that I am making careful note of how many of you are laughing, and I am cross-referencing that list with who gets invited to the President’s Q&A after the bill signing, and it’s not looking good for most of your readers. Last questions before we call a full lid?” A hand went up in the back row. “Lincoln. Go ahead.”

“Senator Charles Pike was recently seen in public on three separate occasions in meetings with the CEOs of major defense contractors who do business with the federal government,” he said. “I was wondering if the White House had a comment.”

“Senator Pike doesn't work here,” she said, a little puzzled. “He's got his own press secretary.  If you need more information about his daily schedule I’d suggest contacting his staff.”

“They’re all contractors who do significant business in the Middle East,” Lincoln went on. “I know Pike is on the President's advisory board for the Qumar peace talks and I’m just wondering if the White House is concerned about a conflict of interest, if he's actively involved with companies that would profit financially if the peace talks aren’t successful.”

“Sounds a little like you’re tossing around accusations of war profiteering against the head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, there, Lincoln,” she said.

“Does the White House have a comment?” he pressed her. She looked up then, her eyes meeting Marcus’ through the glass where he stood watching her. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.

“Not at this time,” she said to Lincoln. “Okay, everyone. That’s a full lid. See you all tonight at the State Dinner.”

She caught Jake’s eye as she stepped down off the podium, expecting a flippant comment, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking back at the observation room, at Marcus and Bellamy, and his face was – oddly – _worried._

“Get Kane,” he murmured to her under his breath as she walked past him to the door. “Your office. _Now.”_

* * *

 

**MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2011 - 9 A.M.  
**

**OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY  
**

“Jake, I swear to God,” she said, as he stepped into her office behind Marcus and Bellamy and she closed the door behind them, “if this is about the fucking pens –“

“It’s not about the pens,” he said. “It’s about Senator Pike.”

Abby stared at him for a long moment. Then, “Sit,” she said, taking a seat behind her desk and waving Jake and Marcus into the chairs in front of her while Bellamy took the couch.

“Lincoln has something on him,” said Marcus, and it wasn’t a question. Jake nodded. “You know what it is?”

“Yeah,” said Jake. “Because we have it too.”

“What is it?”

"They're not just three big-time defense contractor CEO's," said Jake, "they're top-tier Republican donors.  Lincoln's paper got hold of the wrong end of the stick, though.  It's got nothing to do with the Qumari peace talks.  It's about the money.  Charles Pike is putting together an exploratory committee for 2012.”

 _“No way,”_ exclaimed Bellamy, and Jake nodded.

Marcus stared at him. “That can’t be right.  It _can’t_ be.”

“My sources are solid,” said Jake. “And I mean bulletproof. Bank accounts, campaign offices, preliminary staff hires –“

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Abby’s voice was incredulous. “Charles Pike is going to _challenge a sitting president_?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re writing about it?  _Tomorrow_?"

“Of course I am,” he said. “It’s news."

“I’m going to kill you,” said Abby, her voice rising. “I mean it, Jake. I’m going to actually kill you.”

“Abby –“

“On the day of the President’s bill signing for the education reform act you know perfectly well is meant to be the landmark piece of bipartisan legislation of his entire first term, you’re going to run a story about him being challenged by a member _of his own goddamn party_?”

“We’re running the story,” said Jake. “That’s non-negotiable. I’m here as a courtesy, to give you a head start. It’s gonna break online tomorrow morning. I wanted to make sure you guys were ready.”

“Abby, we can’t let him take questions at the bill signing if this is out there," Bellamy said anxiously. "He's gonna get asked about reelection and we're not ready."

“But we can’t tell him about Pike,” said Marcus. “We need his head in the game. We have to cancel the Q&A quietly and we can’t tell him why.”

“I think that’s the right call,” agreed Jake.

“Get out of my office,” said Abby.

“The pens, though –“

“Jackson!” she shouted. He opened the door.

“You have a telephone,” he reproved her mildly.

“This is easier. Can you please escort Jake to the White House historian’s office and lock him in there for at least two hours? Make sure he gets every single available piece of information on the history of the pens used in presidential bill signings since the dawn of the republic, would you please?”

“Jesus,” murmured Jackson under his breath as he walked Jake out. “What did you do?”

“I may have crashed tomorrow’s news cycle,” he said. “She’s gonna need the Chief of Staff and the Communications staff in the Roosevelt Room.”

“Jackson!” Abby shouted at him as they rounded the corner, and he turned around. “I need the Communications staff in the Roosevelt Room, stat,” she said. “And get Thelonious in there too.”

Jackson stared at Jake. “How’d you do that?”

“I was her husband before I was her ex-husband,” he said. “Come on. Lead me away to my punishment.”

* * * * *

“It’s _crazy,_ ” said Bellamy.

“It’s not crazy,” said Marcus. “I’ve known the man for decades. This is exactly how he’d do it.”

“You’re taking Charles Pike too seriously.  He’s a farm boy from Iowa. He used to be a professor of _agriculture,_ for Christ’s sake.”

“Yeah,” said Marcus, “but now he’s a United States Senator with a major role in military policy.”

“When did Charles Pike turn into a right-wing hawk? He’s one of our guys.”

“I know.”

“He’s your friend. Your ex-wives are friends. He _campaigned_ for us.”

“Yeah, and we’re polling soft on defense and Pike knows it, and if he's aiming to poach Republican dollars and voters, the idea of a credible challenge from the center-right of the Democratic Party against a sitting president isn’t the craziest idea that’s ever been put forth in this room, and Jake wouldn’t have taken it to us if there was nothing there.”

“There’s nothing there,” said Bellamy firmly. “Pike’s legit, Marcus. There’s no way Pike flips on us like this.”

“I want to believe you’re right.”

“Believe it.”

“Charles Pike,” muttered Bellamy, scoffing. “Jesus, Marcus. You’ll be scared of your own shadow next.”

“Abby,” Marcus said, turning to her suddenly, realizing she'd been silent. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “The question is, does it help Pike or hurt him if the story gets out there that he’s considering a run? It could be a net gain for us if he's not ready to announce. Those donors may not want their names tagged with his yet.  Going public too soon could shut down the whole thing before it even gets off the ground.”

“What if this _is_ his announcement?” said Kane. “Then he just got himself a free front-page story in the _Washington Post_ and co-opted the President’s bill signing. You can't buy that kind of press.  He just pushed us out of our own spotlight without breaking a sweat and the race hasn’t even started yet.”

“We need to fix this quietly,” she said. “And keep the President out of it. Is Pike on the list for the State Dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she said. “Because I have an idea.”

* * *

**MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2011 – 6:50 P.M.**

**OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR  
**

“Why is it taking so long?” said Bellamy impatiently. He was pacing back and forth in Marcus’ office, fidgeting with his bow tie.

“You’re going to mess that all up,” Abby observed, from where she sat on the couch with her feet tucked up under her, sipping on the champagne she’d swiped from a waiter. Bellamy hadn’t touched his.

“I don’t care.”

“You will when you’re introduced to the Prime Minister with a crooked bow tie.”

“He shouldn’t be taking this long.”

“It takes however long it takes,” Abby reminded him. “You need to chill. Marcus has this under control.”

“It was a good idea.”

“I know it was. I thought of it.”

“On any other night I’d argue with you,” he commented, “but if Jake’s source is right, and if this works, you just single-handedly saved the President from an embarrassing second-term primary challenge _and_ solved the problem of Wallace’s retirement in one fell swoop.”

“Not to mention, look how good I look in this dress.”

“Of course, if you’re wrong,” Bellamy pointed out, “you just tipped our hand to Pike and handed him a gun to shoot us with.”

“You were being so nice a second ago, where’d that go?”

“‘The White House is running scared and tried to bribe me to keep me from coming out here and telling you the truth about how they’re failing to keep America safe’ blah blah blah.”

“I know.”

“I’m just saying, if this falls apart –“

“I said I know.”

He rubbed his temples and began pacing again. “Why is this _taking_ so long?”

As if on cue, Marcus opened the door and gave them a thumbs-up. Abby leapt out of her seat. Bellamy stopped pacing.

“Seriously?” asked Bellamy. “It worked? He said yes?”

“He said yes,” said Marcus, smiling. “Senator Charles Pike has graciously accepted the President's offer to succeed Dante Wallace as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“I could kiss you,” said Bellamy.

“Which of us was that to?”

“Either.”

“How about you just buy us both a drink instead?” said Abby dryly.

“Drinks are free.”

“Then why are we standing here in my office instead of headed over to the ballroom to celebrate?” said Marcus, laughing. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Bellamy fucked up his bow tie.”

“Oh, you can’t go out there like that,” said Marcus, suddenly noticing. “Here.”

Abby watched as he carefully untied the bow tie around Bellamy’s neck. He had a well-deserved reputation for being terrible with ties and always looked just the tiniest bit unkempt unless Marcus took him in hand.

Bellamy Blake had been a late hire on the Bartlet campaign. The senior staff had been in place for nearly a year leading up to the Iowa caucus when their top speechwriter was suddenly and surprisingly poached by the Republicans, leaving them down one key player. Bellamy had no national campaign experience, and was barely twenty-five years old; Marcus Kane had plucked him out of the House Minority Leader’s speechwriting staff against the strong objections of – well, nearly everyone. He was a kid, he had a reputation for causing trouble, and his relationship with Chief of Staff Thelonious Jaha was rocky at best. But Marcus stood firm, and had had Bellamy’s back from day one.

Abby only knew a little about the Bellamy’s home life –he was the sole caretaker for his younger sister Octavia since their parents were both dead, and it didn’t sound like there’d ever been much of a dad in the picture. It had never surprised her that Marcus stepped in to give the boy a chance; but what had surprised her, over the years, was how much Marcus had transformed Bellamy.

She watched Marcus deftly retie Bellamy’s bow tie, straightening it perfectly. Any schlub of a guy looks a thousand times better if you put him in a tuxedo, but when you take men like Bellamy Blake and Marcus Kane who are already better-looking than nine-tenths of the human population, it’s almost blinding. Not to mention what an endearing picture they made, like a father getting his son ready for his wedding.

She liked them like this. She liked these little, quiet, human moments. Out there it was all noise and bustle, with photographers and dignitaries and Secret Service agents and a mob of guests. In here it was just two men in tuxedos and a woman in a silk ball gown, drinking stolen champagne and celebrating a good day's work.

“All right,” said Marcus. “Game faces on. Let’s go.” He gallantly held out his arm to Abby, who took it, and they followed Bellamy to the ballroom.

* * *

**MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2011 – 10:05 P.M.**

**WHITE HOUSE EXECUTIVE MANSION, EAST ROOM  
**

Abby’s best efforts had failed at keeping Jake Griffin out of the press pool for the State Dinner. Marcus found him seated at a table near the back corner, notebook in hand, and caught his eye. Jake waved him over.

“No names,” said Marcus as he sat down. “Write this down.” Jake nodded obediently. “I’m giving you a half-hour head start, as a thank-you,” he added. “You did us a favor when you didn’t have to.”

“Does Abby know you’re talking to me?”

“She agreed only on the conditions that I tell you myself, because she didn’t trust herself not to stab you with a pen fifteen times.”

“Well, that’s fair.”

“CIA Director Wallace is retiring at the end of the year."

“That’s not news,” said Jake. “Everybody knows that.”

“Yes, but right now there are only six people in the world who know what I’m about to tell you,” said Marcus, “which is that the President has just just formally offered the position to Senator Charles Pike.”

Jake stared at him. “Kane, tell me you’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Bartlet’s putting Pike in charge of the _motherfucking CIA_?”

“Keep your voice down."

“That wasn’t why I – Jesus, Kane, you guys are so blind you can’t even see your hands right in front of your face. You were so paranoid about the 2012 primaries that you missed the big picture.”

“Which is what?”

“Charles Pike is _dangerous,_ Marcus,” said Jake. “Not just to the President. The primary challenge was only his opening salvo. There will be more. You just handed him exactly what he wants.”

“Why did you come tell us if you didn’t want us to do something about it?”

“I _did_ want you to do something about it,” Jake retorted. “I wanted you to prepare for the fact that you were about to lose your news cycle. I wanted Abby walking in ready to answer the question about whether the President was going to run again. I didn’t want you putting Charles Pike _in the goddamn Situation Room!"_

He was so angry – so genuinely, distressingly angry – that Marcus began to feel a chill slowly overtake his body, and for the first time, began to wonder if they’d made a mistake.  “Jake,” he said in a low serious voice. “What do I not know right now that I should know?”

“Nothing I can tell you yet.”

"Jake -"

"If I'm wrong, I lose my job."

"But you don't think you're wrong."

"I know I'm not," said Jake soberly.  "But it's not ready for press yet."

“And when it is, we’ll be the first to know?”

“When it is, my editor will be the first to know.”

“Jake –“

“I’m going to do the best I can to make sure my ex-wife doesn’t get screwed on national television,” said Jake, “because I’m a good guy. And I like the President. I voted for him. But I don’t work for you. If there’s a way I can help you, I’m gonna help you, because you’re a good guy too, but that’s the best I can offer you right now.”

“You’re right,” said Marcus. “I’m sorry. You’ve already done enough. Thank you.” He stood up from the table, clapping a hand on Jake’s back as he did.

“Off the record, Marcus, this was a bad idea,” called Jake as he walked away.

“Off the record, Jake, you’re burning through your half-hour head start,” Marcus called back, as Jake sighed, rose from his seat and made his way back to the press office.

* * * * *

Marcus found Abby on the other side of the room, leaning against a pillar with a glass of champagne in her hand. She didn’t see him coming right away, so he got to look at her for a few long interrupted moments as he crossed the crowded ballroom towards her.

She was wearing an emerald-green silk ballgown shot through with silver thread that made her look, from a distance, like she was glittering. It was strapless, with a modest neckline – entirely professional – yet the way it cinched her tiny waist and caused her cleavage to swell in a soft rounded curve caused him to swallow hard. Her soft brown hair was tied into a thick, curly side ponytail that draped over one bare shoulder, and he could see the sparkle of tiny diamonds in her ears where the light caught them.

He hoped it didn’t look like he was staring.

He hoped that if it _did_ look like he was staring, that Jake Griffin had already left the room and wasn’t watching.

She didn’t take her eyes off the President as he approached, and didn’t even acknowledge that she saw him. She simply said, “Is he on it?”

“Yeah. He’s on it.”

“Good.”

“Abby, I’m wondering if we –“

“If we what?”

“Jake said something about Pike that made me think –“

“What did he say?”

He almost told her. He thought Jake probably would have wanted him to. But something stopped him. This had been Abby’s idea, he remembered suddenly. She’d thought of this. And they didn’t know, really, if anything was wrong. They didn’t know what Jake had, how reliable his source was. They had his gut instinct, that was all.  Right now all they knew for certain was that the three of them had identified and eliminated the only credible primary threat against the President, all but guaranteeing him the Democratic nomination.

This was a win, and he wanted her to have it.

“Nothing,” he said. “Never mind. You did a good day’s work today.”

“I’m still coming down from the adrenaline panic of having to start thinking about re-election already,” she laughed. “Jesus. Too early for that. I wasn’t ready.”

“Me neither.”

“Can this be one of those nights where we get sloshed and forget we work together?” she asked, not looking at him, still staring straight ahead at the crowded ballroom, at the President, at everyone in the room who wasn’t the man standing next to her.

“Wow, that would be lovely,” he said, in a voice of mild astonishment, and she plucked two glasses of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter in exchange for the empty one in her hand. She held one out to Marcus.

“Cheers,” she said, turning to him for the first time, and he looked down at her as she looked up at him and suddenly the air around them was electric. The noise, the chaos, the ballroom full of eight hundred people, the President and Prime Minister and Charles Pike and Jake Griffin, everything else was forgotten, and nothing in the world existed except her brown eyes smiling up at him.

He took a step closer to her and bent his head down with every intention of kissing her, and was halfway there before he suddenly returned to himself with a violent start, remembering who and what and where he was, remembering who _she_ was, that this was something he absolutely could not do.

He took a step back from her, abrupt and clumsy, and she watched him with a curious appraisal in her eyes, puzzled and a little afraid, as though she’d known exactly what had almost happened.

"Everything all right?" she asked carefully.

"Fine," he said, knocking back the rest of his champagne.  She watched him intently, but didn't say anything, just took another glass from a passing waiter and put it in his hand, as they stood there in silence, watching life go on around them.

 


	4. Celestial Navigation

** **

**INTERLUDE**

_He doesn’t realize he’s dreaming. Not at first._

_He’s wearing his white tie and tails, and it’s snowing, and he doesn’t have a coat. But the snow isn’t cold when it touches him, it simply melts against his skin and dissolves into air. He doesn’t quite know where he is. Somewhere surrounded by buildings, a place he’s been before but can’t name. Abby’s there too, right at his side, she’s talking to him about something, he doesn’t know what. He can’t really hear her. He’s just looking. She’s small, she’s not wearing high heels, so he has to tilt his head to look down at her face. She’s wearing a floating, gossamer dress that ripples in the breeze, and it’s some color he can’t name, like the color you see when you stare into the sun for a long time and then close your eyes and light flashes behind your eyelids. Her hair is loose and soft around her bare shoulders and she’s smiling at him and bathing him in sunlight._

_Then she turns her back and walks away, motioning him to follow her, and he suddenly realizes he can’t. His feet are rooted to the spot, unmoving, and he’s trapped. He watches her walk away, and then the snow changes. Suddenly every flake that touches his skin sinks inside, down to his bones, and he feels himself begin to freeze. He’s never felt this cold before. He realizes that the farther away Abby gets, the colder he is. She’s taking all the warmth with her._

_He tries to call out her name –_ Abby, come back, come back _– but there’s no sound._

Please, _he begs her silently._ Please. Turn around. Come back. Look at me.

_He’s inside his body and out of it at the same time, he’s feeling an icy chill consume him from the inside out, but at the same time he sees his body from a distance, as an outsider would, and he realizes he’s gone as white as a statue. He’s made of marble, tall and pale and cold, the expanse of frosty whiteness broken only in one place as a creeping red stain blossoms slowly outward over his heart, from the place where the bullet scar lives._

_And then he realizes where he is._

_He knows these buildings because he’s been there before, but it was all noise and chaos then, sirens and shouting and federal agents and six black limousines and five thousand people on the other side of a rope line._

_Now he’s back once more in Rosslyn, Virginia, but it’s eerie and silent and deserted, nobody here to keep him company except the ghosts, and the woman in the sunlight dress who moves farther and farther away, taking all the warmth in his body with him._

_He’s been here before._

_He was cold then too._

_He feels the sting of tears behind his eyes and he lets them fall. Even his tears are marble-cold, clinking lightly to the pavement like hailstones._

Abby, _he cries out to her in his mind, just like he did the first time, just like he did the moment that bullet pierced his skin._ Abby. Please. Abby.

_And she stops in her tracks, her back to him, listening – as though she hears him._

_And then it’s like that night all over again, except that instead of wearing her gray Chanel suit with her hair in a sleek knot, she’s wearing that sunlight dress with her caramel-colored locks flying around her in the wind, and it’s snowing and she’s barefoot but she doesn’t care, she flies up the stairs towards him, calling out his name._

Marcus, _she cries out._ I’m right here.

_And then she’s there in front of him and he’s in her arms and she places her hand over his heart. The blood doesn’t seem to touch her at all – her hand stays white and clean – but he watches her dress shift from sunlight-warm to a deep, deep crimson, and he closes his eyes and feels her warmth pour into his body. The pain eases, and he starts to thaw. It begins inside his heart, where her hand is pressing against him, the way she did that night while they waited for the paramedics, and radiates outward, as her hand forces all the warmth and life back into his heart. He tries to say her name again, but he still can’t speak, so instead he does the thing he’s been wanting to do since the first day he met her, and softly presses his lips against hers._

_The snow keeps falling as he kisses her, but suddenly they’re somewhere else. Rosslyn is gone, the past is gone, and they’re standing in the National Mall beside the Reflecting Pool, which is Abby Griffin's favorite place in the whole city. Ahead of him he can see the graceful neo-classical columns of the Lincoln Memorial, the great man carved in stone sitting patiently on his chair. Lincoln is a statue, but Marcus Kane is a man again, he’s not made of cold white marble anymore because Abby saved him. Her dress is white now, like the statue, like the snow, and he tangles his hands in her hair as snowflakes tumble around them, blanketing the world in white, but her mouth breathes heat into his bones and he’s not cold at all._

_She steps away from him again, but her eyes stay locked on his, she’s still with him, she keeps the cold away, so he isn’t frightened. The snow falls heavy and thick, clouds of white plummeting from the sky, but the flakes are warm where they touch his skin. Abby takes a step backwards, towards the long, glossy bulk of the Reflecting Pool, gliding away into the night before them like a dark mirror.  Then she steps up onto the ledge – brown hair and white gown fluttering in the snow – and with a smile back over her shoulder and a beckoning finger, she steps into the water._

_He doesn’t know what makes him do it, what force propels him to follow after her, but he does. He steps up onto the concrete ledge and looks down at her as she floats on her back in the dark water. Her dress is green now, her tangled skirts drifting wetly around her, like a mermaid, as her hair trails out behind her like seaweed. She reaches up to him, holds out her arms and says his name._

_So he leaps._

_This is the moment he realizes he’s dreaming._

_The Reflecting Pool in January should be freezing cold, and it only a goes down a few feet. But this water is warm, like the Pacific Ocean, midnight-dark and infinitely deep. He glides over towards her and the water around him changes, it suddenly becomes resistant, heavy, like a liquid and a solid at the same time, because he realizes that Abby isn’t floating on the surface of the water, she’s reclining on it, like a cushion. He rises up out of the water to lay his body on top of hers, and the water holds them both up._

_He knows he’s dreaming now, but the dream hasn’t gone away, its vibrant colors haven’t faded. He’s in no danger of waking up. But he can ask for what he wants now. He’s dreaming, but he’s in control._

_He can have anything he wants._

_So Abby’s floating wet dress evaporates off her body as though it was never there, and after a moment, his suit disappears too. She smiles up at him in ecstatic delight, as though this is exactly what she wanted, and gracefully drifts upwards from her reclining position, hovering weightlessly vertical there in the water like an astronaut floating in space._

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, so he draws on his most secret fantasy, and suddenly the dark silence of the National Mall is full of sound and movement.  Crowds of people, making their slow and leisurely way up and down the paths through the snow, passing very nearly within touching distance of Marcus and Abby's exposed naked bodies.  People everywhere . . . but no one can see them.  Public and private at once.  He feels gloriously wicked.  He burns with want.  His hunger for Abby is overpowering, and now he needs to taste her.  
_

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, which means breathing underwater is as effortless as air. He lowers himself down beneath the water’s surface, down into its infinite warm black depths, until he is entirely submerged. Hovering directly before him is the place where her thighs meet in a soft triangle of silky dark hair, and he grips her hips in his hands to pull her close as he kisses her there, over and over. It’s quiet under the surface, and all sound is muffled. He can hear distant splashing sounds as her hands reach out fruitlessly for something to hold onto and her quiet moans grow louder and louder as his mouth and tongue consume her. He can have anything he wants in this dream, which means Abby comes over and over, a hundred times, a thousand times, as he floats forever below the surface of the dark water.  He savors the taste of her on his tongue, the feel of her skin beneath his hands, the way her wild, frantic, keening wails send shivers all over his body._

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, so after Abby has come in his mouth a thousand times, he floats back up to the surface to kiss her mouth, then closes his eyes as she lets the water rise over her head and he feels the startling rush of sensation as her mouth wraps around his cock. In this dream, Abby’s hunger for him is insatiable, and the way her lips swallow him up makes him tremble and moan. He can’t hold himself up anymore, but the water carries him, as though he’s leaning back against an impossibly soft but sturdy thing, bearing all his weight. So he just lets go. He cries out her name, over and over (though the night crowds strolling up and down the National Mall in the snow can't hear him) and he feels a tidal wave rise up inside him. He comes and comes and comes, for what feels like a year. He feels himself burst inside her mouth, but it doesn’t stop, she doesn’t stop, she wants more and more, so he gives her more, she drinks him up and swallows it all, licking and savoring and kissing and consuming him until he feels dizzy, like he might faint. She finishes with a soft kiss against the tip of his cock before floating back up to meet him._

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, so he doesn’t need to rest and recover before he’s hard again. He’s ready now, and so is she. With one graceful movement, she’s floating on her back again, and he moves on top of her, covering her body with his own. The water holds them up, like a soft mattress; it cushions them but it provides just the right amount of resistance. He looks down at her, and her eyes shine up at him, wild with excitement._

Please, _she whispers._ Please, please, please.

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, so the moment he slides his cock into Abby they both begin to lose their minds with pleasure. Nothing has ever felt like this. Nothing ever will. He’s never wanted anyone in his whole life the way he wants Abby Griffin and she’s here, in his arms, floating through black water as white snow falls around them, and he’s so deep inside her that he can feel their bodies slowly merge into one being. He slides out and in, out and in, pressing deeper and infinitely deeper each time, his moans wild and animalistic and full of desperation. And she’s crying out too, she’s calling his name, panting, heaving, gasping, and he can feel the movement all around him of people passing by, walking through the snow, but no matter how loudly he screams, nobody will notice, so he lets himself go._

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, so they come together, at the exact same moment, every single time, a dozen times, a hundred times, the dark water splashing around them with every thrust of his hips and every arch of her back, and each orgasm builds on the last one, until they finally come so hard that even with the inexhaustible endurance and fortitude of dreams, they both collapse into a trembling, weary, liquid heap, clutching each other as they drift through the water like survivors of a shipwreck._

_He can have anything he wants in this dream, so he cradles her body in his arms, because he can, because in here he’s allowed to, but even in the dream he’s not brave enough to say it._

_Even in the dream, he says it with his eyes, not with words._

_But he can have anything he wants in this dream, which means that she looks back at him, and smiles, because she knows._


	5. Bad Moon Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “'Sir, if you’re going to send me out there to lie to the press,' said Abby, 'you’re going to have to give me a better reason than ‘because I said so.’ I’m not your misbehaving teenage daughter. If there’s something to find the White House Press Corps is going to find it and I need to be ready for whatever they ask me. I can’t do my job and protect the President if you don’t tell me what I’m protecting him from.'"

** **

**WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2015 – 7:15 P.M.**

**WHITE HOUSE EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE STATE DINING ROOM**

“Why are we eating goose?” whispered Bellamy.

“It’s a Christmas thing.”

“For Dickens, maybe.  Not for, like, real-live humans with cars and iPhones.”

“The President wanted goose,” said Abby. “You’ll eat it.”

“It tastes like chicken,” said Marcus, passing the basket of rolls down the table so Abby could take one.

“People _always_ say that things taste like chicken," said Bellamy dubiously, helping himself to a giant scoop of caramelized brussels sprouts with prosciutto. “But they never really do.”

“Whatever.”

“Have either of you ever actually eaten goose?”

“Not so much, no."

“Then you don't _really_ know if it tastes like chicken."

“Fine,” said Marcus. “I don’t. But I do know that we’re in the Dining Room of the President of the United States who has expressly requested that his Executive Chef prepare a goose to the exact recipe used by King George the First at his traditional Christmas feast for his royal courtiers, and I also know it’s our last day of work before we all get four days off, so I’m going eat the damn thing and enjoy it.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Bellamy, shaking his head. “I don’t trust it.”

Marcus met Abby’s eyes across the table, and they shared a smile. The pre-Christmas senior staff dinner with the President’s family had become one of their favorite traditions over the years, and they were both feeling a little flicker of nostalgia that they’d only get one more. And by this time next year, the country would have elected a new President; they’d be in the final weeks of their administration, and everything would be different.

Abby was wearing a red velvet dress tonight, the exact same shade as the pinot noir she was drinking from one of the heavy cut-crystal Waterford tumblers the President had informed them were a gift from the Irish ambassador. Clarke was with her dad tonight, as she always was on Christmas Eve Eve – Abby liked making sure they had their own family traditions too, so Jake didn’t feel like he always got short shrift. Marcus liked that about her, that innate sense of compassion and fairness. He liked that Jake’s feelings mattered to her that much.

Down at the other end of the table, next to the First Lady, Thelonious was telling a story about the first Senate campaign he’d ever run, making the President laugh. Bellamy was bickering amiably with Indra, the President’s Executive Assistant, about football, while Raven Reyes from the President’s Council on Science and Technology chimed in from time to time to call them both idiots. The room was pine-scented and candle-lit and the food was plentiful and Marcus loved everyone sitting at this table. He breathed it in, savoring it, and Abby smiled at him. She always knew exactly what he was thinking.

_I don’t ever want this moment to end._

Which, of course, is exactly when it did.

“Mr. President,” said the young page, entering to hand him a note, and the whole room fell silent. The President read the note, handed it to Thelonious Jaha, and they both stood up from the table.

“Sir, what –“

“Situation Room,” said the President, casting a dark cloud over the party. “A bomb just went off in Qumar.”

“Bombs go off in Qumar every day,” said the First Lady. “What’s different about this one?”

“It took out the U.S. Embassy,” said Thelonious grimly. “Abby, get ready for a briefing. This is going to be on the news tonight.”

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2015 – 9:30 P.M.**

**WHITE HOUSE ROOSEVELT ROOM  
**

 

“How many casualties?”

“None,” said Jasper. “Five injured, two in serious condition, none critical.”

“How the hell is that possible?” asked Bellamy.

“They closed early for the Christmas holidays,” said Monty.

“Why?”

“They’re refinishing the floors.”

“Was that public information?”

“No.”

“How many people would have been in that building when the bomb went off if they _hadn’t_ been refinishing the floors?”

“Three hundred and fifteen,” said Monty.

“Jesus.”

“State says based on the blast radius, casualty rate would have been about 90%.”

 _“Jesus,”_ said Bellamy again.

“Have the Bahji claimed responsibility for the bombing?” asked Abby, and Jasper shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said, “but State thinks they will soon.”

“Pretty massive fuckup on their part if the goal was mass casualties,” Bellamy observed.

“Or, pretty massive success if their target is diplomatic relations between Qumar and the U.S.,” said Monty.

“Is that what we’re thinking?” asked Abby.

“Marcus is in with a team from the CIA, NSA and State,” he said, “so you’ll get that soon. We’re just giving you what we know right now.”

“Here he comes,” said Bellamy, hopping down from the table – which he’d been sitting on – as Marcus strode down the hallway with a tall, grim-faced man in a black suit at his side and led him into the Roosevelt Room.

“Sir, this is Jasper and Monty from Communications, they’re here to do the preliminary briefing before tonight’s press conference,” said Marcus. “Guys, this is CIA Director Charles Pike.”

“Which one’s Jasper and which one’s Monty?” asked Pike.

“Doesn’t matter,” they said in unison.

“Okay, well, can one of you show me a copy of what you’re planning to send the Press Secretary out there with, please?” he asked, and even though his voice was low and calm, it commanded such authority that nobody dared to contradict it. Monty handed the sheaf of paper in his hand to Pike, who scanned it briefly and then shook his head.

“Can’t use any of this,” he said. “Throw it out. Who’s got an office with doors that close?”

“These doors close,” pointed out Marcus mildly.

“These doors are glass.”

“So is mine.”

“Mine isn’t,” said Abby.

“Lead the way, then,” he said impatiently, and Abby – a little startled – rose from her seat to lead Pike and Marcus to her office, leaving a puzzled Jasper and Monty behind them.

Once the heavy wooden door had been closed behind them and everyone had taken a seat, Pike spoke.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s the deal. First I’m going to tell you what we know. Then I’m going to tell you what you’re going to say.”

“Generally speaking,” said Abby, “in these situations those are pretty much the same thing.”

“Not today they aren’t,” said Pike. “You got an assistant?”

“Yes,” she said, startled at the abrupt change of topic. “Why?”

“She here?”

“He. And no. He went to my apartment to get me a suit so I don’t have to go on television to announce an embassy bombing in my Christmas party dress. Why?”

“Because I don’t want anyone walking in here in the middle of what I’m about to tell you.”

“Charles, White House assistants don’t walk into offices uninvited when the doors are closed,” said Marcus in a tone of gentle reproof, and it seemed to work.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I wasn’t questioning your assistant’s professionalism, Ms. Griffin. It’s just been a long night, and it’s about to get longer.”

“It would help,” said Abby, “if you can put us in the picture of what we’re dealing with.”

He nodded.

“We’ve got two problems here,” he said. “We have the Bahji terrorist organization, and we have the government of Qumar. The Bahji are unaffiliated with any formal government, religion, or cause, and they answer to no one. I’ve been dealing with the Qumari diplomatic corps since my days in the Senate, and trust me when I tell you that the Bahji cells are a plague on the Qumari people as much as they are on anyone else, and the government would love nothing more than for someone to come in and root them out. But they can’t always take action themselves, because it’s their people who bear the brunt of the retaliatory attacks.”

“Why would the Bahji bomb the United States Embassy?”

“That’s a really good question,” said Pike, “and the answer to that depends on whether or not they claim it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an open question on the table about whether the Bahji intended us to believe the bombers were working for the Qumari government,” he said. “To disrupt the peace talks.”

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Marcus swore under his breath. “We’ve been working since the day we got here to get Qumar to the negotiating table about selling arms to Iran. We’ve got a truce so tenuous it’ll fall apart if you even _look_ at it funny.”

“Yeah,” said Pike, “and the Bahji know that.”

“Okay,” said Abby. “So I’m saying there was a bombing and we’re still investigating and blah blah no information yet but no casualties and they’ll get an afternoon briefing from someone at State. Yes?”

“No,” said Pike. “You’re going to say it was an electrical fire.”

They stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” said Marcus carefully, “She’s going to say what?”

“She’s going to say there was an electrical fire caused by an accident with the maintenance crew,” said Pike. “And that the Bahji started a rumor that it was a bombing to puff themselves up and take credit.”

“Why the fuck would she say that?”

“Because I’m the Director of the CIA and I’m telling her to,” said Pike.

“She’s going to need a better reason than that.”

“She’s not getting one.”

“Do you two actually need me for this conversation, or –“

“Sorry,” said Marcus a little sheepishly.

“Sir, if you’re going to send me out there to lie to the press,” said Abby, “you’re going to have to give me a better reason than ‘because I said so.’ I’m not your misbehaving teenage daughter.  If there’s something to find the White House Press Corps is going to find it and I need to be ready for whatever they ask me. I can’t do my job and protect the President if you don’t tell me what I’m protecting him from.”

Pike gave her a long, appraising look.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Come with me.”

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2015 – 10:05 P.M.**

**WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM**

Pike gave the nod to the guard at the door, who swiped Abby and Marcus’ security badges before nodding them inside. The room was empty, but the screens on the wall were still lit from the briefing the Joint Chiefs had just given to the President. Pike picked up the remote for the projector and clicked a few times until a grainy drone camera shot of a scattering of desert buildings clicked into view.

“What am I looking at?” asked Abby.

“The global headquarters for the international Bahji terrorist network,” said Pike, and Marcus and Abby were so stunned they couldn’t speak. “We’ve been hunting them one by one for years,” said Pike. “All over the world. We’ve been leveraging every asset, every intelligence network, every foreign operative, and we’ve finally traced it back to this location. Every single Bahji operation in the world – from the train bombings in Belgium last year to the assassination attempt on the Turkish Prime Minister in 2006 – is run out of these buildings.”

He clicked the slide again, and the photo was overlaid by a map of the country of Qumar, showing the camp’s location.

“Wait,” said Marcus, standing up to get a closer look. “Wait. Hang on. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

“Marcus, what is it?” Abby whispered, feeling a chill overtake her. The Situation Room was always sinister and foreboding – she’d only been in here two or three times in her life and the experience was always unsettling – but something in the way Marcus was staring intently at the map in front of them made her heart begin to pound with fear.

“They’re in the Tiaret region,” said Marcus to Pike, and he nodded.

“Yes.”

“They’re ten miles from Kalifa Air Base.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re not just telling me that the CIA has finally located the headquarters of the world’s deadliest international terrorist organization,” said Marcus. “You’re telling me they’ve located it so close to a military air base leased by the United States Armed Forces that _our guys could walk there_.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” said Marcus, his voice rising in anger, “well, _maybe_ this is a stupid question, but why the ever-living fuck am I not seeing Black Ops storming the building and arresting every last damn Bahji agent inside it?”

“You have a man on the inside, don’t you?” said Abby suddenly, and both men stared at her. “You have someone embedded with the Bahji. _That’s_ how you got the location of the base. _That’s_ how you knew about the bombing far enough in advance to close down early. They weren’t refinishing the floors.”

Pike looked at her appraisingly.

“Yes,” he finally said.

“And if you take out the camp without every last Bahji cell leader inside it,” she said, “the serpent will just grow seven more heads to replace the one you cut off. And they’ll know they have a CIA agent inside. You had to let them set off the bomb.”

“Yes,” said Pike heavily. “We had to let them set off the bomb. The only thing we could do was make sure no Americans lost their lives.”

“Americans _have_ lost their lives, Charles,” said Marcus sharply. “We’ve still got seven missing POWs that were taken by the Bahji from Kalifa four years ago.”

“You don’t think I’m still doing everything in my power to bring those boys home, Marcus?” Pike shot back at him furiously. “Jesus fucking Christ. Of _course_ I’m trying to find them. Of _course_ we’re taking that seriously.”

“Okay,” said Abby. “So you’re telling me we’re leaving a terrorist control base fully operational while the CIA gets more intel. What does that have to do with covering up the embassy bombing?”

“We’re covering up the embassy bombing because the Bahji have never launched an attack on American soil or against American citizens before,” said Pike. “We want them to think Qumar is on their side, that Qumar fed us bad intel, that we believe the explosion was an accident. We want them thinking we’re credulous and stupid and we’re not looking at them at all.”

“You think they’re gearing up for something big, don’t you?” said Marcus quietly, and Abby’s blood ran cold.

“No, Marcus,” said Pike. “I know it for sure.”

“And you want them looking in the other direction while your guy on the inside figures out what it is.”

“What I’m telling you does not leave this room,” said Pike. “You are the only people the West Wing besides the President and Thelonious Jaha who know what you now know. You’ll tell the press you met with officials from State and redirect all questions to them,” he told Abby. “Don’t answer a single thing more than you have to.”

“What do we tell the staff?” asked Marcus.

“You tell them that Charles Pike says we’re calling this an electrical fire and anyone caught publicly saying otherwise is committing treason against the United States,” he said. “I’m not kidding.”

Abby stared at Charles Pike for a long time, at the stern, cold set of his jaw and his dark eyes. Then she looked at Marcus, who was coiled tightly with helpless anger. Marcus trusted Charles Pike, he’d known the man for decades, so Abby knew Marcus would do what Pike asked him to. But that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

“Okay,” said Abby, and stood up from the table. “Time to get back to work.”


	6. State of the Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'In three hundred and fifty-seven days it all goes away,' she said. 'And we start over.'  
> 'A lot of things can happen in three hundred and fifty-seven days,' he said. 'And besides, there are some things that might not be so bad about starting over.'"

** **

**JANUARY 12, 2016 - 9:30 P.M.**

**WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM**

“Bellamy! Marcus!” exclaimed Raven Reyes, bursting out of the crowd as they entered and kissing them both on the cheek. “You guys kicked so much ass!”

“Thanks,” said Bellamy.

“Seriously,” she said. “I cried. That was amazing. Who wrote the line about ‘the unwritten code of humankind that says, ‘we shall give our children better than we ourselves’ something something?”

“Me,” said Marcus peevishly. “That was me. I wrote eight thousand words, he wrote two paragraphs.”

“Or, to put it another way,” said Bellamy, “together we wrote eight thousand three hundred and twenty words.”

“ _Please_ don’t start this again,” sighed Abby, exasperated. “You idiots do this every year.”

“Hey!” shouted Monty from across the room. “Everyone give it up for the most badass speechwriters in the whole fucking world! Marcus and Bellamy!”

“Eight thousand words. Two paragraphs,” Marcus muttered as the staff erupted into cheers.

“Shut up, Marcus.”

“I’m just saying.”

“They were the two _best_ paragraphs,” Abby said to Bellamy, patting him on the back.

“I think so too.”

“I hate everyone in this room right now.”

“That’s because you haven’t slept since November.”

“Because I had to write eight thousand words for the President’s last State of the Union!”

“We know,” said Abby patiently. “We were all there.”

Monty and Jasper approached and each slung an arm around Bellamy. “This man needs a drink!” Monty (who had clearly already had several) pronounced. “That part about the grandeur of God’s creation and our responsibility to the environment made me, like, sob, for real.”

“You’re welcome,” snapped Marcus. Abby laughed.

“We’re off duty,” she told Bellamy. “Go take your victory lap. Raven, Jasper, Monty, get some Scotch in this boy. He’s been working hard.” And she watched in amusement as they pulled Bellamy away.

Marcus shook his head. “Now, how is he going to learn any humility,” he said, “if you just keep feeding his ego?”

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “It’s _Bellamy’s_ ego that’s the problem.”

“Ouch.”

“You get grumpy when you’re tired,” she said. “And you’ve been tired since – I don’t even remember.”

“A long time.”

“A long time,” he agreed.

“Well, the hard part’s over,” she said encouragingly. “You’ll never have to do this again.”

She’d meant it to be supportive, but he turned and looked at her curiously, and she looked back at him, and they both realized at the same moment that it was the first time that thought had ever occurred to them.

This was their last year in office. The State of the Union was only the first on a long, long list of things they’d shared together for eight years that would be happening for the last time. Like a long, drawn-out year of goodbyes repeating endlessly over and over again.

Abby was astonished at how hard the force of that realization hit her.

“Do you have to do anything right now?” she asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the toasts are over and the President went to bed and Jackson’s sending the press home,” she said, “which means technically I’m off work.”

“Me too.”

“Marcus,” she said unexpectedly, “would you like to go for a walk?”

* * *

  **JANUARY 12, 2016 - 10:15 P.M.  
**

**NATIONAL MALL**

“Where’s your coat?”

“I don’t need a coat.”

“It’s supposed to snow later.”

“It’s not snowing now, though.”

“Abby, I’ve known you for fifteen years,” he said. “I know exactly how this plays out. It’s going to start to snow, and you’re going to get cold, and then you’re going to ask me for my coat, and I’m going to say yes because I’m a nice guy, but then _I’m_ going to be cold, and I should not be punished for being the only one of the two of us who remembered to dress for the weather.” He pulled the black velvet wrap off the coat rack in her office and thrust it into her hands. “Please don’t make me hate you.”

She made a face, but she took it.

It was one of those nights where the cold had an edge to it that meant you could practically taste the snow that was coming. They strolled down Pennsylvania towards 17th in pleasant, comfortable silence, entering the hushed green of the National Mall. Abby had a soft spot for the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and this was one of her favorite walks when she needed to think.

“Do you ever think about what comes next?” she asked him suddenly.

“What, you mean like the afterlife?” he asked, puzzled.

She burst out laughing. “I didn't mean _nearly_ that far ahead."

“I wasn’t sure how metaphysical we were about to get.”

“I wasn’t thinking about your spiritual beliefs, dumbass, I was thinking about our _jobs_.”

“Oh.”

“Look at us,” she said, stopping under a streetlamp. He turned, and looked at her – at the pink flush of her cheeks and the garnet red of her dress and the sleek rich brown of her hair. “We’re two smart people in the prime of our lives. We have decades ahead of us to do whatever we want. But sometimes I worry that anything that isn’t _this_ is going to feel like a letdown.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I suspect it will.”

“Doesn’t it depress you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of it as something depressing.”

“It makes me sad,” she continued thoughtfully. “I don’t want to go be a professional idiot on television or something. Or take some boring job in the private sector. We got into this to help people. I want to help people. But I was watching the President tonight and I was thinking about how this was our last State of the Union and it was the first moment I realized all of this was ending. This is _ending_ , Marcus.”

“I know.”

“Clarke’s graduating from college and my job is ending and a year from now I have no idea what my life is going to look like except that every part of it will be different.”

“It might be good, though,” he said. “It might be really good.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.”

“What’s this about, Abby?” he asked curiously, as they made their way alongside the Reflecting Pool towards Abraham Lincoln. She was silent for a moment, pulling her velvet wrap tightly around her thin shoulders against the chill, before she answered.

Then, “You’re never going to write another State of the Union address,” she finally said.

“No,” he agreed. “Probably not.”

“I’m never going to hear you write another State of the Union address.”

“Abby –“

“I’m never going to sit in your office while you scribble onto your notepad,” she said, “because you’re the last man in America who writes with a pen, and watch you ball up sheets of paper and throw them into your trash can and miss, and then watch your whole face light up when you finally get the words right.” He didn’t know what to say. “I like watching you write,” she said, and there was something a little desperate in it, some other, deeper meaning trying to get out. “I forgot what it meant,” she went on, her voice heavy. “I forgot it was all ending.”

“We’ll still see each other,” he said, more hopefully than he felt, but she shook her head.

“It won’t be the same,” she said. “Nothing will.”

It was hard to argue with that.

They walked in silence for awhile, the Reflecting Pool a dark ribbon to their left, the white light of Abraham Lincoln straight ahead, until they reached the stairs leading up to the memorial. There were still people coming and going, a few clusters of hardy winter tourists, but it was mostly quiet. They climbed the steps in silence to sit side-by-side on the top stair, looking out over the monuments of the city.

“I was thinking about New Hampshire,” Abby said suddenly.

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “I was thinking about that day you came to my office.  You showed up at my door and you said, ‘Come to New Hampshire to meet Jed Bartlet.’”

“And you said no,” he recalled. She grinned at him a little mischievously.

“I believe what I said was, ‘No, you _moron_ , I have a middle schooler and a complicated marriage and I can’t just run off to New England because you've fallen in love with a spoiler third-tier candidate who’ll never win a primary.”

“And I’d just like to go on record, here and now, in the presence of Abraham Lincoln, that I never once said ‘I told you so.’”

Abby laughed. “No, but you _wanted_ to.”

“Every day.”

“I wouldn’t even have fought you on it,” she said agreeably. “You were right and I was wrong. I’d be the Senior Vice President of Public Relations for some pharmaceutical company somewhere if it wasn’t for you.”

“You were so much better than that job,” he said. “This is where you belong.”

“And in three hundred and fifty-seven days it all goes away,” she said. “And we start over.”

“A lot of things can happen in three hundred and fifty-seven days,” he said, then turned to look at her seriously. Her brown eyes met his, and she was startled to see some intense emotion barely contained in their depths. “And besides,” he murmured, “there are some things that might not be so bad about starting over.”

“What do you mean?” she asked quietly, the ghost of a quiver in her voice, as she felt her pulse begin to race.

“I mean,” he said, not taking his eyes off hers, “that we might discover that there are options available to us then that don’t exist right now.”

He looked like he wanted to say more – his lips parted and he took a breath as though about to speak. Then the peaceful stillness was shattered by a pack of loud, giggling teenagers racing down the steps from the memorial, brushing so close by them that they nearly stepped on Abby’s dress.

“We should get back,” said Marcus abruptly, and stood up, dusting himself off. She looked at him curiously for a moment before taking his outstretched hand as he helped her up, and they made their way back down the steps towards Pennsylvania Avenue and home.

As they walked back past the Reflecting Pool, Abby stopped still and tugged at his hand, her face lighting up with excitement. “Marcus!” she exclaimed. “Look! It’s snowing!”

And sure enough, there it was.

Abby turned into a six-year-old in the snow, Marcus had learned years ago, and her guileless enthusiasm never failed to delight him. So he didn’t protest when she slipped out of her black velvet wrap, letting it drag on the ground in her hand, and tilted her face up towards the sky, closing her eyes and feeling the snowflakes alight on her face and hair and pale bare shoulders.

“It’s funny,” she laughed suddenly, “I have the weirdest sense of déjà vu.”

And then he remembered.

_Black water. White snow. Red dress._

_Abby’s mouth on his._

_Abby’s mouth everywhere._

_Abby in his arms in the water._

He had forgotten – he had forced himself to forget – it was one night, one dream, years and years ago – but as he looked at her now, her soft brown hair fluttering in the breeze over bare white shoulders and blood-red satin, face lifted to the sky in a trance of divine ecstasy as she felt the snow float down onto her skin, he couldn’t think of anything except the way it had felt to come with her, that final time, to come so deep and hard inside her that it shook his soul to its foundations.

“Put your coat back on, you’ll freeze,” he said, a little more brusquely than he meant. “It’s late. Let’s get you home.”

She opened her eyes, looked at him curiously, and put her wrap back around her shoulders without a protest.

They walked in silence all the way back to the White House, then got into their separate cars and drove home.


	7. The Fall's Gonna Kill You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “'Abby,' said Jaha in a cautious tone, 'I’m going to ask you some questions, which you are free to either answer, or decline to answer until you are in the presence of a lawyer.'"

** **

**SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH, 2016 – 4:50 A.M.**

**ABBY GRIFFIN’S APARTMENT**

The phone startled her awake.

She reached out with her eyes closed, fumbling around the nightstand until her fingers closed around the vibrating plastic.

“Hello?” she croaked, half-asleep still.

“Abby?”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Jackson. I just got a call from the President’s assistant, he needs you in the Oval Office at six.”

She sat bolt upright. “What happened?” she asked, suddenly wide awake.

“I don’t know,” Jackson said grimly, “but it didn’t sound good.”

“Wait, does he need _everybody_ ,” she asked suddenly, a sense of rising panic as his words finally sank in, “or just me?”

“Just you,” said Jackson, who was clearly thinking the same thing she was.

“What the hell did I do?”

“I don't know if it's about you," he said worriedly.  "It might be about Jake."

_“Jake?"_

"Abby, is it possible that the electrical fire in the U.S. Embassy last Christmas wasn't really an electrical fire?"

She shot bolt upright in bed.

"Oh no," she murmured.  "No, no, no, no, no."

"There's a front-page story in the _Washington Post_ saying the Bahji -"

_"Jesus fucking Christ."_

“Yeah,” said Jackson. “Get here _fast_.”

* * *

  **SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH, 2016 – 6:00 A.M.**

**OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES  
**

The President wasn’t in the Oval Office when she arrived at six a.m. – he’d been called down to the Situation Room – but Thelonious Jaha and Charles Pike were waiting for her with cold, angry faces.

Pike flung down a copy of the _Post_ on the table in front of her the moment she walked into the room. “This is _bullshit_ ,” he said fiercely.

“Sir,” said Abby, her voice carefully neutral, “I’m sorry, I don’t – I got a phone call an hour ago, I’m just coming into this now, can you please take me through it step by step so I’m up to speed.”

“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered, “you should be up to speed already. You should have been up to speed before this so you could have stopped it from happening. It’s fuckin’ amateur hour over here, Thelonious, and you know it.”

“Charles,” said Jaha reprovingly, and put a hand on his arm. “Sit,” he said to Abby. He and Pike sat themselves down on one sofa, while she took the other.

“There’s a leak in this building and I want it stopped,” said Pike. Jaha shot him a cold glare.

“There’s a leak _somewhere_ ,” he corrected. “We’re far from having proven that it came from the West Wing. The CIA and the FBI are investigating, and they expect to have answers for us before the end of the day.”

“That’s good,” said Abby. “Right?”

“Right.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry,” said Abby, “just so I’m clear – am I here because you want to prep me for the questions I’m going to be getting at the morning press briefing?”

Pike looked at Jaha.

Jaha looked at Pike.

“Abby,” said Jaha in a cautious tone, “I’m going to ask you some questions, which you are free to either answer, or decline to answer until you are in the presence of a lawyer.”

“I – what?”

“Have you, in the past two weeks, engaged in any conversations with Jake Griffin about the information Director Pike provided you in the Situation Room in December about -"

 _“Seriously?”_ exclaimed Abby.  “You think _I’m_ the leak?”

“You’re the only person in the West Wing with an ex who’s a _Washington Post_ reporter,” Pike shot back at her.

She picked up the newspaper he’d tossed at her and tossed it back to him. “Check the byline,” she snapped. “Felix Sinclair. I might have an ex who’s a _Post_ reporter, but not _this_ reporter. Not the one the information was leaked to.”

“Abby, someone inside the federal government has compromised national security,” said Jaha. “This is serious."

"You were at that dinner, Thelonious," she said, exasperated.  "We all were.  There were thirty-something people in the room when the President told us about the bombing.  Not to mention that the CIA and State knew about it.  That's dozens of people with enough information to put the pieces together.  Why are you questioning _me?_ "

"We're questioning everybody," said Thelonious. 

"Okay, well, first of all, I haven't spoken to Jake since the bombing, second of all, I've been doing this job long enough to know what not to say to reporters, and third of all, I've got press in two hours and this is what everyone's going to ask me about, so if you're done insulting my professionalism, you better brief me on what you actually want me to say."

"Someone's on their way over from State right now," said Thelonious.  "He's going to brief you on the arrest of the bombers."

She stared. “Sorry, did you say the _arrest_ of the bombers?”

Jaha nodded. “Once it was in an American news outlet,” he said, “the Qumari defense minister suddenly became very willing to help us track down the Bahji operatives who targeted the embassy. They’re still trying to get their U.N. sanctions lifted and they don’t want trouble.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Abby. “We've spent years trying to prod Qumar to take more decisive action against Bahji attacks carried out against foreign agents and getting pissed when they try and look the other way.  Then somebody calls up the _Washington Post,_ rats them out for harboring terrorists, and suddenly the defense minister realizes he couldn’t find his sunglasses because they were on top of his head the whole time?”

“That’s about the size of it, yes,” said Jaha.

“Well, Jesus Christ,” said Abby, “why aren’t we throwing this reporter a parade?”

“Ms. Griffin –“

“Sir, I realize this puts the CIA in a difficult position, but from where I’m sitting, if it's anything but really good news that Qumar finally got off its ass and arrested even one Bahji terrorist, you’re gonna have to explain it to me.”

“The CIA does not owe you that information, Ms. Griffin,” Pike growled at her. “There’s a traitor in this building and I’m going to find out who it is.”

“Call me when you do so I can kiss him right on the mouth,” said Abby, irritated into bluntness by Pike’s peremptory attitude. He shot her a dark, cold glare. She folded her arms and stared back.

“Pike,” said Jaha, “you can go ahead and go back to the Sit Room. I’ll be along in a minute after I have a word with Abby in private.”

“I’m sorry if I was flippant,” said Abby, who wasn’t really, once the door had been closed behind him. “I know we can’t screw around with national security. But we’ve been through this before, Thelonious, time and time again. Hunting down internal leaks is almost impossible. The number of different people in different buildings in this city with access to information we think is classified – “

“I know.”

“Someone at State could have told their wife or the mailman. Someone could have left something in the copy machine at the Department of Defense office. Someone could have overheard a phone conversation when a door was left open.”

“I know.”

"To say nothing of how goddamn many people work in that embassy!  You think _they_ think the reason they're all sitting around in some underground safe house is because of an electrical fire?  This was _always_ too big to keep quiet, Thelonious, I'm honestly surprised we made it this long.  And I resent that Pike wants it to be our people because that means it wasn’t _his_ people.”

“I know you do.”

“And Jake Griffin didn’t write this article,” she added. “Go yell at Felix Sinclair’s ex-wife, if he has one. It’s got nothing to do with Jake.”

“Abby, do you know who Felix Sinclair is?” asked Jaha, something curious in his tone. She shook her head.

“A stringer, I’m assuming,” she said with a shrug. “Why?”

“He’s a junior reporter for the City Desk,” said Jaha.

“He’s what?”

“His last big story was about the mayoral race, Abby.  Nobody leaked classified intel on Bahji terrorist movements to Felix Sinclair. And it doesn’t read like anything he’s ever written. You want to know who it reads like?”

“Thelonious –“

“One of two things happened here, Abby,” he said. “Either Jake Griffin wrote a classic Jake Griffin front-page feature exposing corruption in the federal government and a cub reporter stole it, successfully managing to hoodwink the entire editorial team by passing it off as his own – “

“Don’t say it.”

“Or Jake _gave_ it to him.”

“You’re insane, Thelonious,” said Abby. “Jake Griffin is a lot of things but humble and self-effacing aren't on the list.  Why the hell would he take his name off a story like this?”

Jaha stared at her coolly, his face an impassive mask. “Exactly,” he said.  "Now I’m sure you can see why Charles Pike was interested in talking to you.”

* * *

  **SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH, 2016 - 11:40 A.M.  
**

**OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY**

The CIA press office prepped her for the briefing and took questions themselves, explaining in detail that they were anticipating a swift resolution to the leak investigation and reminding the press that, while the federal government respected their right to protect the privacy of their anonymous sources, on matters of national security and when American lives were at stake, there was no room for ambiguity.

It was a solemn briefing, the events of the day casting a sobering pall over the whole room. Jake Griffin’s empty seat seemed proof that Jaha’s bizarre theory was right, but Abby couldn’t think why Jake had opted out of that story. He knew she’d be pissed at him for printing information that would make her job more difficult – leak investigations were costly and time-consuming and never turned up anything and slowed day-to-day business down to a crawl, so everyone found them annoying, but it was hardly the kind of thing Jake would forfeit a major scoop to protect her from.

Everything about this was bizarre.

After the morning briefing finished, she spent several hours cloistered in the Roosevelt Room with staff from the CIA and the Pentagon, crafting that afternoon’s press release, before returning to her office a little before lunch. The second she walked in the door, as if on cue, the phone rang.

“Abby,” said Jake in desperate relief. “Thank God. I’ve been trying you all morning.”

 “I was in the press briefing, Jake, which you would have known if you’d been there. This CIA bullshit about the bombing - “

“I know, that’s why I called.”

“Look, Jake, this day just exploded in my face and I’m going to be dealing with federal investigators crawling up my ass, so I hope this isn’t just a pleasant social call.”

“I know who the leak is, Abby,” he said, and she felt her blood run cold.

“Jaha was right,” she said softly. “You wrote the story. And you gave it to Sinclair.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want it to trace back to you. I didn’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Too late for that,” she said. “The nightmare hellscape of this day began bright and early with a cheerful Oval Office run-in with Charles Pike. That man’s a real peach, I don’t mind telling you. I’m just _shocked_ three different women have divorced him.”

“Abby, listen – “

“No, Jake, I’m not going to let you do this. I don’t want to know the identity of your source.”

“You’re about to get hit, Abby. It’s gonna break today and it’s gonna break _hard_.”

“We captured a pack of terrorists who tried to take out an embassy full of Americans,” she said. “I honestly don’t get why I’m the only person who thinks that’s _good_ news.”

“Because it’s not about the embassy,” he said quietly. “Today’s story is only part one.”

The room got suddenly very quiet and very cold.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is your door closed?”

“Yes. What’s part two?”

“Charles Pike,” said Jake. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I’ve been investigating him for years,” said Jake. “When I came to you about the primary challenge, and Marcus told me you’d offered him the CIA job, I was horrified. I didn’t have confirmation sources on any of the things that I knew – it was just whispers and rumors, and nothing from inside the CIA or the White House. Just murmurings around town, you know, bits and pieces. Enough to spark interest but nothing I could use.”

“Then what?”

“Then the source from today’s story contacted me with the last few missing pieces to put the whole thing together.”

“What’s part two, Jake?”

"There's a Bahji training camp nine and a half miles Southwest of Kalifa Air Base, in the Tiaret region of Qumar," said Jake.  "The CIA knows it's there.  Pike's known for years."

"I can't confirm or deny whether or not I already knew this," said Abby carefully, "but if, hypothetically, I did, I would imagine that there's an embedded CIA agent there who feeds us valuable intel and whose cover would be compromised if anyone found out he'd revealed the location of the camp, and that Pike is trying to protect him."

"I'm sure he is," said Jake.  "But he's also protecting himself.  He's covering his ass because of what we would find if we'd sent troops in."

"What would we find, Jake?" she said quietly, feeling a chill all over her body.

"The seven missing American prisoners of war," he said.  "They've been there the entire time."

Abby felt like she was going to throw up.  "And Pike _knew_?"

"Yes."

"Were they being tortured?"

"Yes."

"There were seven American hostages being tortured _nine miles_ from the base where they were taken?  Pike knew the whole time?  Why the hell wouldn't he - "

" _Power,_ Abby," said Jake.  "His guy on the inside gets good intel.  Pike uses him a lot.  It goes back to when he was a senator. I don’t know, maybe it’s saved lives. We’ll never know.  Pike gets better intel than State, than Qumar's own agents.  It makes him invaluable to the President, and he was willing to let seven American soldiers be tortured to death to stay that way."

“How long have you been sitting on this?” she said, after a long pause.

“You know me, Abby,” he said. “As soon as I had enough to go to press, I went to press. I just got the final pieces of the puzzle last night.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I couldn’t, and you know that.  Without corroborating evidence it’s just character assassination. It’s slander. I couldn’t have gone anywhere with it. The President would never have listened.”

She started to say something, but heard the sound of Jake setting down his phone on the other end. There were muffled voices, Jake arguing with someone else, and then she heard him utter an explosive _“Fuck!”_ before picking back up again.

“Jesus, Jake, what the hell was –“

“Abby, you should get out of the building,” he said. “I don’t want you tied up in this. I don’t want you mixed up in what’s about to happen.”

“What's about to happen?” she pressed him, voice rising in panic. “And how the hell do you know before I do?”

“My FBI sources are better than yours,” he said. “There are agents on their way and they’ll be inside the West Wing in eight minutes.”

“What is going on?”

“Is Marcus with you?”

“Huh? No, I haven’t seen him today. Why?”

“Find him, Abby,” Jake commanded her. _“Now.”_

“Jake, what in God’s name –“

"Marcus Kane is my source, Abby," he said, as her eyes went wide with shock.  "Tell him he's got eight minutes to find a lawyer." 

 She slammed down the phone, heart pounding, and sprinted out the door, almost colliding with Bellamy.

“Abby, what –“

“No time,” she said, grabbing his hand. _“Run.”_

So they ran.

They ran down the hall, through the bullpen, and around the corner to the Communications bullpen.  Marcus' office was empty, the door still locked and the lights off. He hadn’t come in today, said his assistant. He had meetings on the Hill but would be back any minute and could she –

Abby was gone before the girl could finish her sentence, Bellamy trailing along behind her. They burst into the lobby just in time to see a crowd gathering to watch Charles Pike and a mob of federal agents escorting someone out of the building – a tall figure with dark hair whose hands were cuffed behind him.

They’d got him coming in the door. There had been no time to warn him.

“Marcus!” she called out, not caring who heard, not caring if people were staring. He whirled around in astonishment at the sound of her voice, and his face collapsed at the sight of her, which was how she knew he’d known this was coming, that he’d stayed out of the building on purpose so that she wouldn’t have to see.

Their eyes met for a long moment. “Marcus,” she whispered, eyes filling with tears, and tried to rush after them, but Bellamy held her back.

“You can’t,” he said. “Abby. You can’t do anything.”

And they stood there together in the White House lobby, watching through the glass doors as the CIA marched Marcus Kane into a big black SUV, flanked by armed agents on both sides. Then they slammed the doors closed on him – so loudly that Abby felt the jolt and flinched – and then in a heartbeat, they were gone.


	8. Things Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was a bad idea from the minute she got out of the cab. It became an even worse idea as soon as he opened the door, hair a little rumpled, in a faded Van Halen t-shirt and a pair of Notre Dame sweatpants, looking at her with wide-eyed surprise that turned quickly to something else as she kicked the door closed behind her, tossed her coat and purse on the couch, stepped out of her heels, and kissed him."

** **

**THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016 - 2:30 P.M.**

**ABBY GRIFFIN’S APARTMENT**

 She didn't realize Clarke was there until she spoke.

"Mom?" Clarke said, letting herself in the front door and stopping short in the living room in astonishment to see Abby, still in her pajamas, curled up on the couch staring at the television.  "Why aren't you at work?"

"I'm working from home today," said her mother absently, not looking at her, and there was something flat and dead in her tone that Clarke didn't like at all. 

She hadn't been herself in months, but Clarke had hoped it might get better with time.  Still, when she'd called her mother's cell twice with no answer, and then tried her at the office only to be told by Jackson that Abby had taken a leave of absence all week, she decided it was time to intervene.

"You're the White House Press Secretary," said Clarke.  "You can't work from home."

"Then I'm sick," said Abby dully.

"No, you aren't," said Clarke, dropping her coat and backpack on the hall table and coming into the living room to sit next to her mother on the couch.  Abby didn't move or speak, or even acknowledge her presence, but she didn't resist as Clarke curled up into her side, laying her head on her mother's shoulder.  "People are worried about you," Clarke said gently.  "Jackson is worried."  Abby didn't answer.  "Mom, you've barely even taken a day's vacation since you started this job.  Why did you suddenly just disappear from work for a week?"

Abby didn't answer, but Clarke followed her hollow stare towards the television.

She was watching the White House press briefing.

She was watching the Attorney General of the United States standing in _her_ place at _her_ podium, fielding a hurricane of questions about the two-month-long grand jury trial of Marcus Kane.

The trial which had ended an hour ago, and in which he had been found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

"I couldn't do it," Abby whispered.  "I couldn't stand up there and -"

"No," said Clarke, wrapping her arms around her mother.  "Of course not.  Of course you couldn't."

"I might never see him again."

"They'll appeal," said Clarke, with more confidence than she felt.  "It's Marcus, Mom.  He'll be okay.  The President wouldn't let him go to jail.  He would never do that.  Marcus got him elected twice.  He's been at his side for ten years."

"He broke the law, Clarke."

"To save those guys from getting killed!" Clarke exclaimed indignantly.  "The CIA was gonna let them stay in that prison.  Pike was willing to let them _die_."

"You know that," said Abby flatly, "and I know that, and the people who love Marcus Kane know that.  I think even the President knows that.  But we're four weeks out from Election Day."

"This is about the election?"

"This is about everything Marcus Kane worked his whole life for going up in smoke if the Democrats lose the White House," said Abby, her voice empty and numb.  "The President's going to make sure they get him a good lawyer, but he's too pissed at him to do anything more than that.  And if he loses the appeal, nobody is going to step in and stop him from going to jail."  Clarke watched in horror as tears fell down her mother's cheeks.  "It's over," she whispered.  "There's nothing anyone can do."

* * *

**TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016 - 3 P.M.**

**ELECTION DAY**

**JAKE GRIFFIN’S APARTMENT**

It was a really, really, really bad idea, and Abby knew it. 

But she also didn't care.

It was Election Day, which meant she had nothing to do, she was redundant, she was less than 24 hours away from being a lame duck, and she was sick of pacing back and forth in her office waiting for news.  The DNC and the Santos campaign had taken over and basically shoved everyone out of the way, and nobody would need Abby Griffin at her podium again until tomorrow morning, when she returned to pretending that anyone cared about anything Jed Bartlet did now that a new president had been elected.  

Which meant she had nothing, not one blessed thing, to distract her from the echoing, hollow sadness inside her chest, because this morning Marcus Kane had lost his appeal.

It was a bad idea from the minute she got out of the cab. It became an even worse idea as soon as he opened the door, hair a little rumpled, in a faded Van Halen t-shirt and a pair of Notre Dame sweatpants, looking at her with wide-eyed surprise that turned quickly to something else as she kicked the door closed behind her, tossed her coat and purse on the couch, stepped out of her heels, and kissed him.

There was a moment of surprise, but he was game immediately and he didn’t ask questions, he just went with it, hot and hard and hungry, and there was so much about being married to Jake Griffin that had driven her nuts but this had always been the good part. They’d never had the problem their friends were always griping about, how to maintain a healthy sex life with a kid in the house. Which had become the problem, eventually; it’s hard to navigate a struggling relationship when you’re married to someone who can distract you mid-argument by pushing you up against the wall and sliding three fingers inside you until you’re suddenly screaming for a very different reason. He always made her come, every single time, and it was impossible to stay angry after that. And then by the time she remembered the conversation she’d been trying to have, the thing she’d been trying to say, the moment was over.

And it went both ways, of course. She’d dropped to her knees in the kitchen more than once to end an argument with a quick flick of the zipper and a light pull of fabric and a hot, wet mouth wrapped around his heavy cock, and she was too good at it for him to be able to concentrate on his irritation when her tongue was sliding wetly up and down him like that.

They’d always been good at sex, and particularly good at using sex to escape.

If Jake suspected that was what had brought Abby to his door, he didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t offer a minute’s hesitation. He opened his mouth to hers and began tearing off her clothes and his hands on her body were exactly what she needed, leading her far away from the place she didn’t want to be.

They didn’t make it up the stairs the first time, or even manage to undress all the way. He pressed her backwards, up against the wall, and the cotton of his sweats and boxer shorts came down as the fitted curve of her black pencil skirt came up and then he tugged aside the whisper of black silk beneath them and thrust inside her, and there it was.

Bliss.

Escape.

Perfect contentment.

The grief wringing her heart, the clamor of unhappy thoughts in her head, quieted as swiftly and surely as if she'd slammed a door on them.  They were still there, scratching and clawing their way in, but they were muffled, distant.  Everything in the whole world disappeared except the sheer delight of Jake's cock inside her for the first time in forever, and she felt alive again for the first time in months.

“Oh my God, baby,” he whispered into her neck as he slipped a hand under her thigh to lift it around him and pull her in closer. “You feel incredible.”

“Oh, _fuck,_ Jake,” she whimpered, as muscle memory took over and the ten years since their divorce, since the last time he’d been inside her like this, dissolved completely, and she melted. His cock was hard inside her almost instantly, and she’d arrived ready.  She’d been unable to stop thinking about it in the taxi on the way over, closing the privacy partition and draping her coat in her lap so she could discreetly slide a finger inside her silky black underwear, leaning back against the plastic seat and closing her eyes as she traced frantic circles around her own clit. The car had arrived at Jake’s before she’d had time to finish, but that was all right. That wasn’t how she’d planned to come tonight anyway.

But she’d made herself ready, and Jake slid into her with no friction, deep and fierce and relentless, and she couldn’t stop herself from letting out a desperate moan.

“We should – oh, Abby, Jesus – oh, God – we should go upstairs,” he panted as his hands gripped her ass and pulled her closer and closer, burying himself deeply inside her. She shook her head.

“Next round upstairs,” she said breathlessly. “Finish me here – _fast_ – or I’m gonna lose it.”

“Fuck,” he groaned into the hollow of her throat. “I think I’m almost there. Jesus, Abby. You feel so good, baby, I forgot how good you felt.”

“I’m so close, baby,” she whispered pleadingly. “Please, please, I’m so close. I can’t – I can’t – “ And then all her words disappeared as one of his hands slipped away from her ass and over her hip to slide down between their bodies and pinch her clit between a probing thumb and forefinger, and she came so hard that she lost her balance and he had to catch her, holding her up in big, strong arms. “Oh,” she moaned, her body trembling, clutching onto him for dear life, and then his arms tightened around her and his hips picked up speed and then he was bursting inside her, everything was heat and wetness and low panting breaths.

Abby wanted desperately to get out of her clothes, which had suddenly become unbearably constricting, so as Jake pulled his softening cock out of her and stepped back, releasing her from his arms, she made her way up the stairs, unbuttoning her blouse as she went. “Bed,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jake, and she laughed, and he stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, before smiling back, and she realized he knew exactly how long it had been since anything had made her laugh like that.

There was more to making a marriage work than sex and laughing. She knew that. She’d always known that. But right here, in this moment, in Jake’s apartment, with Jake’s warm wetness sliding stickily down her thighs and the pleasant burn of his stubble on her neck, it was awfully hard to think about that.

And it didn’t get any easier with the second round – where he nibbled his way down her body to bury his mouth deep inside her and make her come over and over again with the insistent, lapping tongue she’d missed so much.  Or with the third, where - after they slept for a few hours, ordered Chinese food and watched _Bull Durham_ in bed - she straddled him against the headboard and rode him until he exploded inside her with a low, strangled moan, his eyes wide and dazed from how good it felt to surge up and down so deeply inside her.

By the time they’d come down from that round of orgasms, made their way to the shower (where Abby evened the score, three to three, by pulling him down onto the wide low bench and then lowering herself to her knees between his parted thighs to take his cock inside her hungry mouth), and stumbled back to the bedroom, it was almost eleven, too late for a cab, too late to think about doing anything except falling into Jake’s bed and letting him wrap his arms tightly around her.

"That was pretty spectacular," he observed, "if I do say so myself."

She laughed, savoring the feel of his rough stubble as he kissed his way across her neck and shoulders.  "I'd say so too," she agreed.

"I could get used to this."

"Me too," she said.  "You've learned some new moves."

"I try to keep current with the latest trends."

"Well, keep it up.  I'm not an easy woman to impress, but I'm giving you ten out of ten."

"I'm serious," he said, propping himself up on one elbow.  "You and me.  I could get used to this."

She looked up at him.  "I'm not sure what you're saying."

"I'm saying I missed you, Abs, and it feels great to hear your laugh again, and it feels great to fuck you, and neither of us are seeing anyone else right now, and maybe it's time we talk about what it might look like to give this another try."  He nuzzled his mouth into her throat, sliding his fingers down to thread their way through the damp hair of her cunt, and Jesus Christ, how could she be ready _again_ this quickly, but she was.  "I know it's been ten years," he said, grinning as her hips lifted reflexively off the bed, "but it definitely seems like we've still got it."

She laughed. “Slow down,” she said, laughing a little breathlessly as his mouth made its way back down to her nipple and she inhaled sharply. “I’m not making life plans right now, Jake, I can’t deal with any of that until after the inauguration.”

“That’s months away.”

“Can we deal with the big stuff later?” she said, pulling him back down on top of her, feeling for his cock, which was still soft but beginning to twitch slowly back to life as she pumped it firmly up and down in her fist. “Can it just be you and me, right now? Just for a minute. Can I just be here?”

He kissed his way up from her breast to her mouth and inhaled the startled gasp she let out as he crooked two fingers deep inside her.  “Yes,” he said, his fingers flickering and pulsing inside her, his thumb tracing circles around her clit as she felt him slowly grow harder and harder in her hand. “Be here with me, baby. Be right here.”

* * * *

**7:15 A.M.**

She woke up to bright sunshine streaming in through the blinds, the smell of coffee, and the sound of Jake singing along to Bruce Springsteen (poorly but with enormous enthusiasm) in the kitchen. She stretched sleepily, her body still blissed out from three orgasms and her first good night’s sleep in . . . Jesus. Weeks? Months? The past eight years? She didn’t know.

She pulled her underwear on, along with Jake’s t-shirt, and made her way into the kitchen where Jake was scrambling eggs.

“Congratulations,” he said, grinning at her happily, "the Democrats kept the White House.  It's a beautiful day."

And suddenly something in her head clicked into place.

She’d shown up at his door in the middle of the afternoon, fucked him for hours, slept over, and now they were eating breakfast in their underwear. She didn’t even have the excuse that she’d been drunk. She’d made this decision consciously. Yesterday this had been what she wanted.

But she didn’t know if it was what she wanted now, and the longer she stood at the counter, watching Jake sprinkle oregano and black pepper into her eggs and cook them exactly the way she liked them, the less sure she actually felt.

“Hey,” she finally said, carefully, and he was too sharp not to notice the peculiar tone.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Good,” she said. “Thanks. That’s a quality mattress you have there.”

“I didn’t pick it out,” he said, “it came with the apartment,” and she could tell from the way his shoulders were tensing up that he’d figured it out and was already angry. “Let me guess,” he went on, not looking at her. “You have to go.”

“I wish I could stay for breakfast,” she said, “but I have a packed day today, and –“

“You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“I know I don’t. But I’m doing it anyway.”

“There’s coffee,” he said, “if you want coffee. I can loan you a travel mug.”

“Thanks. That’s nice of you. But not necessary.”

“Not necessary,” he repeated. “Meaning, I could have saved myself the trouble if I’d been thinking with my head instead of – “

“Hey,” she snapped. “No. Don’t do that.”

“So this was just a booty call?  You were bored on Election Day and needed a quickie?”

“I don’t make booty calls.”

“You don’t make _any_ calls. And you don’t take mine.”

“You make it sound like I’m trying to avoid you.”

“Are you?”

“Jesus, Jake, what kind of question is that?”

“It’s a pretty straightforward one.”

“I’m not doing this with you, Jake,” she said, turning her back to go get her clothes from the bedroom. “I don’t have time for this right now.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “I checked.”

This stopped her cold in her tracks. She turned back to him slowly, feeling anger suffuse her entire body.

“What are you talking about?”

“I called Jackson before you woke up, Abby,” he said, “I’m not an idiot. I checked your schedule. You have an hour. Maybe even two. If you wanted to stay for breakfast, if you wanted to talk to me, you could, but you won’t.”

“You called Jackson?”

“Yeah.”

“You had no right to do that.”

“You were out like a light,” he pointed out reasonably, “and I didn’t know if I needed to wake you up or if I could let you sleep. Jackson said your schedule was clear until ten-thirty. It’s barely seven. You could stay if you wanted to stay.”

“Fine,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down at the kitchen table. “Fine. Look. Here I am. I’m staying.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” he said irritably, and that was it.

“This isn’t about breakfast,” she said. “Why are you pissed?”

“Is it true that you’re turning down the London job?” he asked, startling her so badly she spilled coffee all down the front of Jake’s Van Halen shirt.

“Jesus Christ, Jake, how the hell did you know about that?”

“White House Press Secretary gets head-hunted to run the largest progressive think tank in the world?” he said. “Are you kidding me? I’m a journalist, Abby, this is what I do. I’ve been watching the A.R.K. Institute for six months trying to get a read on who they were scouting to take over after Diana Sydney stepped down. I just didn’t know it was going to be my ex-wife.”

“It’s not.”

“Why?”

“I’m not taking the job,” she said. “And you’re burning my eggs.” He pulled the pan off the heat and hastily scooped the eggs out of the sizzling skillet onto a plate.

“I’ll start over.”

“It’s fine.”

“These are –“

“They’re fine, Jake, I don’t mind. I’m hungry. Give me the damn eggs.”

He set the plate down in front of her and handed her a fork, but remained at the counter to eat his own, as though space between them had suddenly become a necessity.

“Why wouldn’t you take the A.R.K. job?” he asked. She shrugged.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she said around a mouthful of eggs. “I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it, I have until the first of the month to decide.”

“What did the Santos campaign offer you?” he asked curiously. 

“Special Advisor for Press Relations.”

“Kind of a step down, isn’t it?”

“Everything’s a step down from this.”

“Unless you run for President.”

“Ha ha.”

“You’re not cut out to be an advisor, Abby, you’d go absolutely crazy. It’s your nightmare. Spending all your time researching the world’s problems and then offering well-informed advice that nobody takes because they can’t piss off some crotchety senior congressman from Kentucky who wants an Air Force base in his district. You’d _hate_ that job. Hate it.” She shrugged again, but didn’t disagree. He took his plate and cup of coffee and sat down across from her. “Okay,” he said, “let’s talk through it. Pros and cons.”

“We don’t have to do that.”

“It’s a big decision,” he said. “I could help.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will,” he said, sounding ever so slightly hurt. “I just meant – I could be a part of it. You and me. Figuring this out together.”

“Together?” she repeated incredulously. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Abby –“

“We’re not together,” she said. “That’s not . . . I should never have – “

“I know you said you weren’t ready to make this kind of decision until after the inauguration, but I don’t want you making choices you’ll regret.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have a job offer from the London _Guardian_ ,” he said, “and I want to know if I should take it.”

She set down her fork.

“You have a job offer in London,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“You found out I was being considered for the A.R.K. position and you decided to go hunting –“

“They came to me,” he said, “it’s not related.”

“Sure it’s not.”

“But it’s a nice coincidence.”

“Jake, I know you mean well, but we don’t have the kind of relationship anymore where you get to make my career decisions.”

“One, I’m not trying to make them, I’m trying to be part of a conversation about them, and two, if we don’t have that kind of relationship, what kind do we have?”

“I don’t know what you _want_ from me, Jake,” she snapped, a trifle defensively – knowing she’d made a mistake, this was all on her, this was a bad idea, and it’s not like he had no right to be upset.

“I want you to be _happy,_ Abby,” he retorted. “I want you to do what you want to do. Take the job in London, take the job at the White House, I don’t care. I just want you to _talk_ to me about it. I just want to be a part of your life.”

“We have a kid together, Jake, you’re never not going to be a part of my life.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Maybe I _don’t_ know it, and you’re going to have to be a little more clear about what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking you who we are to each other.”

“We’re exes who slept together,” she said flatly. “I don’t know if there’s more than that here, Jake, I can’t think about this right now, not until –“

“Yeah. I know. I know. Not until after the inauguration. Except that’s a line of bullshit and you know it because we’ve been down this road before, we know exactly how it goes.  If you take the Santos job there _is_ no after.  You're right back in it again, it’s the first hundred days and the Cabinet appointments and the first State of the Union and then it’s straight into budget wrangling and before you know it you’re in the midterms and I’m still waiting to figure out if last night meant anything to you at all, or if you were just blowing off steam."

"What is that -"

"He lost the appeal," said Jake, and even though his voice was gentle and full of compassion the whole room went cold, and Abby felt suddenly a little sick.  "He lost the appeal, and he's going to prison for the rest of his life, and it's a terrible, terrible thing, and every decent person should hate it.  I hate it.  He's a good man and I protected him as far as I could and none of this is fair.  But it is what _happened_ ," he said, kind but insistent, "so you have to make whatever choice you're making based on that."

"Jake -"

"There is no future between you and Marcus Kane," Jake said.  "I'm sorry, baby.  I'm so sorry.  But that's just . . . a thing that we all have to accept is true."

"I can't do this right now."

“I don’t want to turn you into something you’re not,” he went on. “I know that last night was a distraction - a fun distraction that maybe meant something and maybe didn't - but I think we could have a future together.  I think you and me and Clarke – there’s a chance it could work. But I can’t try again if you’re not ready. And I can’t wait forever to decide.”

“Jake –“

“I’m going to say yes to the job,” he said abruptly. “I’m going to London. Clarke’s going to London. You could too.”

“Clarke’s only going to be there for a _year,_ Jake. Her life is here. Her home, her friends –“

“She could make a home there. We all could.” He shook his head sadly. “But you don’t even see me in the picture, do you?”

“I don’t know what the right answer to that question is.”

“It’s the truth. Whatever the truth is, that’s the right answer.”

“The truth,” she said, “is that I don’t want to sit behind a desk at a think tank pushing paper for the rest of my life. I don’t care how fat the paycheck is or how flashy it sounds. I don’t know what I want, Jake, but I know it isn’t that. If you want pros and cons, there it is. You want me to want it, and you want me to want you, but I can’t make either of those decisions right now. And I have to go to work.”

“Abby – “

“I have to go, Jake,” she said, and disappeared into the bedroom to change, closing the door firmly behind her.


	9. The Stormy Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'It’s not the same without him,' he said in a sad, quiet voice, which was as close as Bellamy Blake had ever come in eight years to telling Abby how much he loved Marcus Kane.  
> 'I know,' she said, which was as close as she had ever come in eight years to admitting that she loved him, too."

** **

**MONDAY, JANUARY 9 TH, 2017 – 7:45 A.M.**

**OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY  
**

 “Jackson!” she shouted down the hallway, and she could hear his footsteps racing down the hall.

“You weren’t supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes!” he exclaimed in dismay as he rounded the corner.

“My breakfast meeting got canceled,” she said, staring at the wreckage that was once her office and was now an endless sea of dozens upon dozens of file boxes on every flat surface, including most of the floor. “What the hell is this?”

“It was supposed to be cleared out before you got here.”

“Did you honestly think you’d be able to tackle this in fifteen minutes?”

“I was gonna try.”

“Is this OMB and the briefing memos?”

“I’m taking care of it.”

“Okay.”

“Most of this is going to storage, they’ll be by for it later –“

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a weird day. Week. Month.  Year, really.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, Jackson, it’s fine.”

“I moved your meetings to the Roosevelt Room.”

“Thank you.”

“Your eight a.m. is here already, but I got him coffee and told him you'd be a few minutes, and he said no problem. So he’s ready whenever you are.”

“Thanks, Jackson. Wait, what’s my eight a.m.?”

“This is –“

“Oh, Lord,” she sighed, “is this another one of those infinite 'conversations about my future?'”

“Job offers?” asked Callie Cartwig, ducking around Jackson to come through the door, then stopped short, staring. “Jesus,” she said, “I thought you had had two more weeks before they started turning your offices into storage units.”

“Congresswoman,” exclaimed Abby, startled and flustered, concealing her surprise with an overabundance of cheer that made her voice come out higher-pitched than she intended. “It’s good to see you.”

“Do you have a few minutes?” she asked, a little apprehensively. “I’m on my way to some meetings on the Hill but I thought I’d see if you could squeeze me in.”

“She’s free right now,” said Jackson helpfully.

“It seems I’m free right now,” said Abby, forcing a smile. “Can Jackson get you a coffee or something?”

“I’m good, thank you,” said Callie. “Seriously, what exploded in your file cabinets over here?”

“OMB needs the briefing memos by end of business today,” said Jackson, a trifle defensively.  “I came in early to get a head start, but there were more than I thought.”

“It’s fine, Jackson, don’t worry about it,” Abby told him again. “Thank you. Will you please go tell Indra that I’ll be in to see the President shortly?”

“Sure,” he said. “But don’t be too long. You want to be out of the Oval by eight-twenty.”

“Why, what happens at eight-twenty? Is the room gonna detonate or something?”

“You know the NSA’s probably got bugs in this room somewhere, right?” asked Callie dryly.

“No,” said Jackson patiently, “because at eight-twenty the President has a sit-down with the newly-hired News & Politics editor of the London _Guardian.”_

“Oh,” said Abby.

“I’ll be out of your hair long before that,” Callie assured her. “I really don’t want to be the cause of an awkward run-in with your ex in the Oval Office.”

“Thank you, Jackson,” Abby said, “that’ll be all for now.”

“I really will take care of those boxes.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Thank you.” And he closed the door behind him.

Abby sat in her chair, motioning Callie to take a seat across from her.  The two women had known each other for a long time - Callie Cartwig was not just the senior senator from the great state of Maryland, she was also the former Mrs. Marcus Kane, and had consulted as a legislative liaison on both the Bartlet campaigns.  They'd always liked each other, and in the early days had been friends.  But life got in the way, once they were in office and there was no time anymore for anything resembling a social life, and they hadn't gone out for a drink in probably five years.  They saw each other at work, like this, or at political events, but that was all.

But Abby knew Callie Cartwig well enough to know exactly what had brought her to the office today, and she knew the conversation wasn't going to be pleasant.

“What can I do for you?” she began carefully, trying to push through the rising tension in her chest.

“Well,” Callie gave a half-hearted laugh, “speaking of awkward run-ins with exes –“

“Callie, you know I can’t talk to you about this.”

“Presidential pardons,” she interrupted Abby firmly. “Tis the season, right?”

“Yes,” agreed Abby, her tone deliberately neutral.

“Is Marcus on a list somewhere?”

“The DOJ and the pardon attorneys are reviewing the applications," said Abby, "but I don’t think anyone’s had a chance to take it to the President yet.”

“Are you planning to?”

“To bring it to the President?”

“I know this is awkward,” Callie said, “and he’s pissed off a lot of people. Including you, and the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee and God knows the President, but he was trying to save seven American soldiers from –“

“Callie –“

"The European Union thinks he should get a medal. So does the United Nations. And NATO.  _Everyone_ wanted that base shut down.  There are Nobel Peace Prize rumors, for Christ’s sake, Abby. Did you see the _New Yorker_ profile?”

“I did.”

“There’s a petition.  The soldiers' families started it.  Thousands of signatures. Thousands of people who think that Marcus Kane stuck his neck out to save seven Americans and shut down a terrorist cell, doing the job Charles Pike should have done in the first place. People who think he’s a hero.”

“Callie, it’s more complicated than that.”

“I know the President is angry, and he has every right to be,” said Callie, “but we’re talking about _prison_ ,” and suddenly Abby couldn’t look at her anymore.

Marcus in prison.

Marcus locked up as a traitor, all because he’d been the only one of them – the only one in the whole building – willing to stick his neck out to stop Charles Pike.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, her voice hollow, and she could feel the hurt and disappointment radiating off Callie as she stood to gather her things and go.

“He was your friend for a long time, Abby,” she said quietly, and Abby looked up at her then, their eyes meeting, and Abby could feel the other woman’s grief as palpably as if it were a physical thing they were both holding in their hands.

 _He’s not_ just _my friend_ , she wanted to say, but didn’t. Not here, not like this, and not to his ex-wife. Not when she couldn’t promise anything.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said again, a little more firmly this time, knowing it wasn’t enough, and Callie walked out without another word.

* * * * *

**12:15 P.M.**

Jackson brought her the list at lunch.

“This is everybody?” she asked him.

“Everyone who applied for a pardon,” he said. “Though the President can add his own names.”

“This is the _whole_ list?” she prodded him, skimming through the three typed pages he’d put in her hands.

“Well, no,” he explained, “they’ve already cut a few people.”

“Did you read the earlier drafts?”

"Yeah -"

“So you’ve seen all the names?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember every –“

“Marcus Kane?” she interrupted him abruptly, and Jackson stared at her, his warm dark eyes alight with surprise.

“No,” he said gently. “Marcus Kane wasn’t on any of the lists.”

Abby sighed. “That means he didn’t apply for a pardon,” she said, leaning her head back in her chair and closing her eyes. Of course. The goddamn martyr. Of _course_ he didn’t. “But if the President wanted to, he could commute his sentence?”

"Of course," said Jackson, surprised.  "Is he asking about it?”

“No."

“Are _you_?”

She hesitated for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “What do you think?”

“I can't tell you what decision to make on this,” said Jackson, his denial kind but firm. “Is that why Callie Cartwig was here?”

“Yeah.”

“You know who you have to talk to,” said Jackson gently.

“Yeah,” she said. “I know. I just – if I tell him, and it doesn’t happen –“

“He’s not a kid anymore,” Jackson pointed out. “He’s thirty-one years old. He was Marcus Kane’s right-hand man for seven years. And you can’t break his heart more than it broke already when Marcus left.”

“How long until that list of names turns into a stack of letters on the President’s desk?”

“They’re on their way over now."

"Then get him as soon as you can," she said.  "You're right.  I need to talk to Bellamy."

* * * * *

**3:10 P.M.**

 “What in the name of –“

“I _know,_ I’m _on_ it,” snapped Jackson before Bellamy Blake could even finish his sentence.

“He’s a little sensitive about the box situation,” sighed Abby. “Come in. If you can wind your way through the chaos."

“Your three o’clock is in the lobby,” said Jackson, “but I got him a soda and he’s fine to wait until you’re finished in here.”

“Thanks, Jackson.”

“I promise the boxes will –“

“You’re not in trouble,” she said for the hundredth time. “I promise.”

Bellamy watched him go with an amused grin on his face. “What are you going to do without him?” he asked, and it was half a joke, but Abby suddenly realized that of all the goodbyes and transitions she was facing in her final two weeks on the job, this was the one that had genuinely never occurred to her.

What _would_ she do without Jackson?

Charlie Jackson had been assigned to her on her first day at the White House and never left.  Other assistants for other senior staff members came and went, clamoring for more interesting positions, or climbing the ladder to secure political capital, but Jackson stayed put.  He had been by Abby's side for eight years, knew her better than nearly anyone except Clarke, and she could never have made it through the past two terms without him.  Yet it had never occurred to her that the next job she took wouldn't have a Jackson in it, and she was astonished by how overwhelmed she suddenly was by the wave of grief that realization caused her.

“What’s your three o’clock?” Bellamy asked curiously, and she shrugged, coming back abruptly to the present.

“Job offers,” she said. “Some corporate headhunter. I can’t remember. Are you getting them too?”

He nodded. “I can’t really think that far ahead yet,” he said. “I’ve had some interesting offers from defense contractors, but I’m not sure.”

“You started out in the Army, I’m sure you could go back,” she said. “Something with the Joint Chiefs, maybe. Or the Pentagon.  You’ve got a lot of skills military brass could use. And you’re young. You could still end up a five-star general if you wanted to.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what I want. I thought I had a plan, once, but then it all went – Well. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” she said, startling him. “Close the door.”

“What?”

“Close the door, Bellamy,” she ordered him. “We need to talk.”

For a long time, he sat in the chair across from her desk and watched her, but she didn’t say anything. He didn’t mind. He let her think it out. She’d speak when she was ready, and not before. After a few moments, she pulled a file folder out of her desk drawer and opened it, pulling out what appeared to be a letter on White House stationery, awaiting the President’s signature, from a file full of several dozen that looked the same.

“I don’t know what to do,” she murmured, “and you’re the only person that I knew would tell me the truth.”

The penny dropped, and he looked at her with wide eyes.

“Is that –“

“Yes.”

“Has the President signed off on it?”

“He hasn’t seen it yet,” she said. “He doesn’t know.”

“And you want to know what I think you should do.”

“What would you do?” she asked. “If you were me.”

He didn’t answer for a long moment, rubbing his temples wearily. “If you wanted a neutral, outside opinion, you went to the wrong guy,” he confessed. “I’m as biased as you are.”

“I don’t want neutral,” she said. “I need to talk this through with the only other person who cares about him like I do.”

Bellamy leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of her desk, and thought for a minute.

“If Pike finds out before the President does," he observed, "he'll come up with some way to stop it.  It'll get ugly all over again."

“Yeah.”

“Not to mention that it may tank your chances with the Santos campaign.  This is the kind of thing that could be a black mark on the whole first quarter of the new administration.”

“I know.”

“They’d be walking in on January 20th with a millstone around their necks already.”

“I know.”

“And we could sit here arguing all day about whether what he did was right or wrong but the fact is that he _did_ do it, and it _is_ technically treason.”

“I know that, too.”

“But . . . I sort of don't give a shit about any of that," he said bluntly, and she nodded, feeling the knot of tension in her chest ease.

"Neither do I."

"It’s _Marcus_ ,” he went on. “It’s Marcus Kane. In prison, for the rest of his life. And maybe we can’t stop it, but we have to try.”

“You think I should take it to the President, then.”

“He would do it for us,” Bellamy insisted. “In a heartbeat. He wouldn’t even stop to think. He’d do it for us.”

“He didn’t apply for a pardon, Bell.  He didn’t ask for forgiveness.”

“Of _course_ he didn’t,” he scoffed impatiently. “Are you surprised?  I'm not.  He doesn’t want to put the President in the position of saying yes or no.”

“That’s my question,” said Abby. “Will he be pissed at _us_ , then, if we do.”

“Do you care?” asked Bellamy. “If it keeps him out of jail, Abby, do you actually care if he’s pissed?”

“Not really, no.”

“How long until those letters have to go to the President?”

“8 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“Then go talk to Marcus tonight.”

“Yeah," she said, exhaling the word in a low, drawn-out sigh.

“He’d do it for you, Abby.”

“I know.”

“He’s miserable, stuck in that apartment all day, just waiting for the axe to fall. You’ve seen him. He’s not himself.”

“I haven’t,” she said tonelessly, and Bellamy’s head snapped up.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I . . . I haven’t seen him since he left.”

“You haven’t – Abby, that was almost a _year_ ago.”

“I know.”

“He was your friend. He was crazy about you. He always had your back.”

“I know that, Bellamy.”

“How could you not have –“ he began to say, then stopped short as the truth crashed down on him all at once. _“Oh,”_ he said quietly. “Oh. Okay.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking it."

“No, I get it,” he said, nodding. “I didn’t get it before.”

“There’s nothing to get," she said a little too emphatically, but he just nodded as though she'd confirmed something he already knew.

"I thought about it after the Rosslyn shooting," he said, "when I saw you with him in the hospital.  But I wasn't sure.  And there have been other -"

"You're barking up the wrong tree, kid."

“Go talk to him,” he said. “Do it tonight. He needs to know.”

“What if he doesn’t want a pardon?”

“That’s between him and the President,” said Bellamy. “That's not your job.  You just need to get the President to sign the letter."  He stood up and came around the desk just then and did something he’d never done before.

He hugged her.

Startled, she froze for a moment before softening and hugging him back.

“It’s not the same without him,” he said in a sad, quiet voice, which was as close as Bellamy Blake had ever come in eight years to telling Abby how much he loved Marcus Kane.

“I know,” she said, which was as close as she had ever come in eight years to admitting that she loved him, too.


	10. The Long Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “'I missed you,' he said softly, and she felt her heart flip over inside her chest.  
> 'Yeah,' she said, smiling back at him. 'We had it good there for awhile.'”

**MONDAY, JANUARY 9TH, 2017 – 8:00 P.M.  
**

**MARCUS KANE'S APARTMENT  
**

She sensed him before she saw him.

The door opened, the warm light from his living room shone out into the hallway, but there were four tall men in dark suits blocking her line of sight, so she felt his presence before she saw his face.

"Good evening sir," said Agent Miller pleasantly.  “Mind if we take a look around?”  And he must have nodded, because Miller and the rest of his agents entered to do a sweep, leaving nothing standing between Marcus Kane and Abby Griffin but treason charges, ten months of silence, and a doorway.

They stood there for a moment, looking at each other, neither one certain how to proceed, the silence growing thick and palpable. Finally Miller stepped back out into the hallway, gave the all-clear, and nodded at Abby that it was safe to enter. Marcus stood at the door until they were gone, then closed it behind him.

He'd grown a beard since the last time she'd seen him, and didn't appear to have cut his hair.  The Marcus Kane she knew wore sharp suits and kept his hair neat and his face clean-shaven.  This man hadn't cut his hair in months and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and even though her heart began to pulse in her chest at how inexplicably, bafflingly sexy he suddenly was, she also felt unmoored, anchorless, without the face she recognized looking back at her.

“Here,” said Abby, handing him the bottle of wine in her hand.

“Thanks.”

“It’s not a gift,” she said curtly, pulling off her coat and scarf and setting them down on the couch. “I need a drink.”

“Would you like to sit?”

“I sit all day.”

“Should I be feeding you, or just the booze?”

“Booze is fine. I can’t eat today.”

“You sure? I made chicken," he said, gesturing to a rather impressive platter on the counter.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“So,” she said crisply, trying to swallow her discomfort. “How are you?”

“Oh, groovy,” he said as he pulled out a corkscrew and opened the bottle of wine.

“When do you go?”

“Twenty-first," he said.  "Day after the inauguration."

“What have you been doing?”

“Well, cooking this chicken took some time,” he said, carefully not looking at her as he poured. “I read a lot – I’ve read, really, _all_ the books at this point – “

“Anything good?”

“I’ll make you a list,” he said, handing her a glass and then pouring one for himself.  She took a long drink, then picked at the perfectly roasted chunks of fingerling potato surrounding the golden-brown roast chicken on the counter.

“This is good.”

“Well, I’ve had a pretty open schedule. Lots of time to practice.”

“Yeah.”

“St. Petersburg, right?”

“Yeah. Low-security, which certainly outshines the alternatives, but still.”

“Yeah.”

“Bunks. Ten in a room.”

“Like camp.”

“Yes,” he said tightly, walking away from her into the other room. “Exactly like camp.”

“Sorry,” she said uncomfortably, watching his whole body tense up. “Maybe . . . we should try to do something.”

“Like what, dig a tunnel?”

“Callie came by,” she said. “She floated the idea of a pardon.”

Marcus’ whole body tensed up. “Apparently she and I need to have another conversation about how she doesn't get a vote in my future anymore."

"Hey," she snapped.  "Knock it off.  She's worried.  We're _all_ worried.  Nobody wants to see you go to prison."

"It's not like it was my first choice either, Abby."

"Have you stopped to think for a second what this is going to do to the people who care about you?" she spat in exasperation.  "Callie's a wreck.  This is tearing Bellamy up, and you know it.  Jesus, your _mom_ -"

"Did you really come over here to talk about my mom?" he retorted.  "You're sure listing off a whole lot of people who aren't you.  Do you actually give a damn about how I'm doing, or are you just the one they nominated to come here tonight because you're the best at arguing?"

“I gave a damn enough to request the fucking pardon,” she shot back, “despite the fact that you walked out on the President while we still had a job to do."

"Abby, I've spent the past ten months explaining myself, and frankly I'm exhausted.  I did what I had to do, I broke the law, I accept the consequences, I'm done."

"If you could stop for one minute and think about what it does to the rest of us when you keep playing hero, getting yourself arrested and shot," she snapped, and it must have been a little more naked than she intended because he looked up at her sharply.  She covered the way she usually did, with irritation.  "You don't need a pardon, Marcus Kane," she muttered, "you need a slap on the face."

"Are you pissed because I walked out on the President," he asked, "or pissed because I walked out on _you_?"

"I'm pissed about a lot of things."

"Well, so am I."

"When are you not?"

“I don’t want a pardon," he growled at her, slamming his glass down on the table and turning away.

“Well, that simplifies matters,” she said coldly. “Thanks.”

It was silent for a long moment after that.  She could hear him behind her, breathing hard.  She braced her hands on the marble of the kitchen counter, its smooth coolness oddly comforting beneath her fingertips.  It stabilized her, somehow, to have something steady to hold onto. 

She should go.  She should walk out the door.  There was no reason not to.  He had said no.  No to the pardon, no to their help, no to _her._   No to any chance of escaping life in prison on charges of treason.

She had kept her word to Callie and Bellamy, she had done what she said she would do, she had come here tonight to ask him, and he had said no.

_Why are you still here, Abby?_

Because the thought of never being able to see him again except across a metal picnic table in a federal penitentiary made her feel sick to her stomach.

They'd have him in a jumpsuit, or sweats.  She'd never get to see Marcus Kane in a tuxedo again. She'd never be able to touch him.  She'd never spend another long evening on the couch in her office, surrounded by stacks of files, watching him scribble on his yellow notepad with a pen in one hand and a beer in the other.

She thought about that night at the Lincoln Memorial after the State of the Union and she thought about the time he'd almost kissed her at the State Dinner and she wanted to cry.

It couldn't end like this.

She couldn't let it.

She let out a long, drawn-out breath that was almost a sigh, and felt the coiled tension inside her release.  All the fight had drained out of her, and she was simply very, very tired.

“You don’t even want to _consider_ ," she said in a low, haunted voice, "what this will do to the people who care about you?”

“You think I haven’t?” he said softly, and she couldn’t answer. She busied herself refilling the glass, even though it wasn’t nearly empty yet, but it gave her something to do.  She wasn't ready, just yet, to turn around and look at him.

"Let's talk about something else," he said gently, and it was clear all the fight had gone out of him too.  "Let's talk about you."

She laughed a little at this, turning around finally, attempting to pull herself together.  "Sure," she said agreeably.

"Are you going to take the A.R.K. job?"

"How'd you hear about that?"

"Word gets around," he said.

"I got a courtesy offer from the President-Elect, so I'm thinking about that too."

“Well, you’d be a get,” he said approvingly. “You gonna do it?  Stay on at the White House?"

She hesitated. “I . . . probably?” she said, all her certainty evaporating in the face of a direct question from the person who knew her best in the world. “I don’t know. It’s . . . complicated.”

"Clarke said you've been -"

"When did you see Clarke?" she cut him off, startled, before he even finished his sentence.  He stared at her blankly.

"Thursday," he said.  "She comes twice a month, for dinner.  You didn't know?"

"Of _course_ I didn't know," she snapped.  "You think if I'd known my daughter was coming to visit you that I wouldn't have -"

"That you wouldn't have come with her?" he finished the sentence, his smile a little sad.  "Abby, you've known exactly where I was for the past ten months and you haven't come to see me once.  Or even called.  Don't kid yourself that you'd have tagged along if you'd known about Clarke.  You'd just have stopped her from coming, too."

"That's not fair."

"If you don't want her to come back again," he said, "I'll tell her to stop."

"She's an adult now, Marcus, I don't make her decisions.  I'm just . . . surprised."

"You're upset."

"I'm not upset."

"There are tears in your eyes," he said gently, and she hadn't even noticed until he said it, but there they were.

How could she explain it?  How could she put into words what it meant to her that, while she was wrestling with the complicated maelstrom of her feelings and her job and her fury at Marcus for disappearing and her panic about the future, Clarke had simply walked over here and knocked on his door?  That Clarke cared about Marcus enough, trusted him enough, not to care the tiniest bit what he had done?

Why was it so simple for Clarke - and for Bellamy, for the rest of the staff, even his ex-wife - in a way that it wasn't for her?

"What did Clarke say?" she said abruptly, dashing the tears from her eyes.

"What?"

"You were about to tell me something," she said.  "Clarke told you -"

"That you're seeing Jake again."

"Clarke's too chatty for her own good."

"Are you?"

"No.  Kind of.  Not seriously."

"For how long?"

"It was just the once," she said.  "On Election Day."

"So you hooked up with your ex-husband again on the day my appeal fell through," said Marcus.  "Should I read something into this?"

"No."

"Okay," he said agreeably, and to his credit, he didn't.  He didn't push at all, just drank his wine and watched her, but somehow she felt herself fumbling to explain herself.

“It was one night, which was perfectly nice, but he’s getting way ahead of himself," she said, not sure why she felt suddenly defensive.  "You heard about his new job in London, right?  And he wants me to move out there with him, which is - I mean, I’m not ready to shape my life around a guy I slept with once. It doesn’t make sense.”

"Whoa there," said Marcus, cutting her off.  "Let's remember who you're talking about here.  You didn’t pick him up in a bar last Thursday, Abby, he’s Clarke's father and your ex-husband and he’s been in your life for twenty years.”

“That doesn’t mean it all magically falls into place if we decide to take the leap again,” she shot back.

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t answer.

“What?” she said, defensively. “I’m not resisting.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m not one of those women who can’t handle a good thing when it’s standing in front of them.”

“Good.”

“Why don’t you sound convinced?”

"Because you're working way too hard to try and convince me," he said simply.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We're not good at this part of it," he said.  "People like me and you.  We're not good at the part where you share your life with somebody who's not _also_ up at four a.m. staring at the twelfth draft of paragraph eighty-seven of the State of the Union.  If we wanted to be with real people we'd have done it already.  Callie and Jake are great.  They tried hard.  We each had a chance and we couldn't make it work."

"So what, you think I'm not really trying with Jake?"

He stood then, glass of wine in hand, and moved very close to her. “You showed up here at eight o’clock at night with a bottle of wine, playing the last card in your hand to try and keep me out of prison even though we both know it's out of the question, telling me about a man who’s crowding you. I think a lot of things.”

She looked at him.

He looked at her. 

He set his wine down on the counter and placed a hand over hers.

"You think I came here for -"  She stopped herself.  "You think I came here tonight to -"

“I think you don’t know why you came here,” he murmured, and he was so close to her that she could feel her whole body begin to shiver. “You’re a woman with a lot of options. You’re acting like the world’s backing you into a corner, bouncing you from one thing to the next – from Bartlet to Santos to Jake to me.  Maybe you should stop bouncing and pick something.” He was so close to her, close enough that it would take so little to lean in and kiss him, and his voice was warm and kind, and she just wanted to stay in this moment forever. “What do you want?” he asked her gently and she felt her eyes fill up with tears.

“I don’t know,” she said helplessly, and they sat there for a long moment, just looking at each other before she finally said, "I think I want a piece of that chicken."

He smiled at her, then, his real smile, for the first time all night, the smile that lit up his face and crinkled the corners of his eyes.  He slid the platter over to her.  "Help yourself," he said, and she reached down and tore off a piece.  It tasted like lemon and rosemary.  She hadn't eaten anything Marcus Kane had cooked with his own hands in a long, long time.

She couldn't think about that right now - all the years of shared Thanksgiving dinners with Bellamy and his sister sitting next to Clarke at the table as Abby poured wine and Marcus carved the turkey.  She couldn't think about the pink princess cake he'd baked Clarke for her sixth birthday when Abby's oven broke the day of the party.  Every beautiful memory hurt.

“I missed you,” he said softly, and she felt her heart flip over inside her chest.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling back at him. “We had it good there for awhile.”

“Yeah, we did.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, the silence echoing between them. Marcus’ eyes were suspiciously shiny and she could hear his heart beating.

“You should go,” he finally said, standing up and going over to the door, and she nodded, following him without a protest.  She stood quietly while he pulled the door open, and then she put her arms around him, pressed a soft kiss against his cheek – wanting more but not trusting herself to be able to stop if she did – and held him close for a long, long time.

"I don't want to lose you," she whispered.

"Abby, it's already done," he said.  "It's over.  There's nothing you can do."  He pressed a kiss on the top of her head.  "But it means so much to me," he said.  "That you tried."

"Of course."

"No, not of course," he said, shaking his head.  "You didn't have to."  And he looked so lost, so much smaller than she’d remembered him, somehow, that she realized suddenly that all this time he thought she’d stayed away because she was angry. Because she hated him. He had no idea it was because it hurt too badly to be near him this close to losing him forever.

"I don't want you coming to visit me in prison," he said suddenly, startling her.  "Or bringing Clarke."

"What?"

"I don't want you to see me like that."

"Marcus, it's a life sentence."

"I know."

"You're telling me I can never see you again," she said, her eyes welling up with tears.  "That this might be the last time I ever - that we ever -"

And then suddenly, startlingly, the whole world split open top to bottom, because he suddenly pushed the door closed, took two steps towards her, seized her face in his hands, and kissed her.

Maybe it was the urgency in the way he pulled her in, the way it felt as though he’d been desperately holding this back all night long – or longer, maybe, for months or years even – and the dam had finally broken. Maybe it was thought of never seeing him again. Maybe it was the realization that part of her had known all along that this was inside her, that for the past eight years of working side-by-side with him she hadn’t felt the need to date, to have a partner, to build a life with somebody else, because Marcus had always been enough.  Maybe it was because she’d always believed a day would come when all of this would be over, when her life would be hers once more, and she’d be free to choose him.

But there wasn’t going to be a day like that, because deep down they both knew there was a very good chance the President was never going to sign the pardon letter, and Marcus Kane was going to jail, and whatever picture she’d had in her head of what their lives might be like the day they walked out of the White House for the very last time was gone. It wasn’t real.

So maybe that’s what it was, the thing that crackled and sizzled between them as his mouth crashed into hers. Not just the eight years of almosts and yearning, but the knowledge that everything that had ever passed between them was going to end the second he closed that door behind her. They were pushing the future as far away from them as they possibly could. How long could they make this moment last, and how far down inside it could they let themselves fall?

His mouth moved to her throat as his hands flew all over her body, pulling her coat and scarf back off and dropping them to the ground, then sliding behind her to cup her ass inside her gray wool pencil skirt. She gave a soft moan at the shivery-sweet sensation of his beard against her skin, and he growled a little in hungry pleasure at the sound of it. She felt him push the fabric of her skirt up high around her hips as he backed her against the wall, running his palms up and down the impossibly soft skin of her bared thighs. She fumbled with the buttons of her blouse, practically tearing it off in her haste to bare her lacy white bra to Marcus’ ravenous mouth, and he groaned with desire as the soft round swell of her breasts came into view.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “Abby, I –“ and then couldn’t speak anymore as he plunged into her creamy smooth flesh, burying his mouth between her breasts and nuzzling deep inside. She tangled her fingers in his thick, lush hair – she hadn’t thought she’d like it like this, all unkempt and shaggy, but it felt so good in her hands, so soft, so impossibly silky, that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to let go.

His knee slipped between her thighs, nudging them apart, and their bodies tangled together as she straddled his leg, feeling the bliss of pressure from his hard, muscular thigh press up firmly against her cunt, and feeling the hot iron of his cock straining through cotton against her skin. She rode his thigh a little, clamping her own legs tightly around him, feeling warm wetness begin to warm and saturate her whole body as her cunt was taunted and tantalized by friction.

“How long do you think we can stall those Secret Service guards outside before they start asking questions?” he asked her, voice muffled by the soft skin of her breasts. She laughed.

“They never ask questions, Marcus, that’s their whole deal,” she said, panting a little for breath. “They’re not going to rat us out.”

“Even if I send you back down to the car with your clothes and hair all askew?”

“Even then.”

“Thank God,” he murmured, unsnapping her bra and pulling it off, taking her breasts in his hands to knead and caress the round flesh and gently pinch the nipples, making her gasp.

“Besides, I’m sure they think I came here to fuck you anyway,” she said breathlessly.

“Is that what you want?”

"I think it's always been what I wanted," she said in a quiet voice, surprising even herself by the simple unvarnished truth of it, and the world slowed to a halt for a moment as they just looked at each other.

"I thought it was just me," he said finally, after a long moment.

"It wasn't just you."

"That night in the snow, after the State of the Union," he said, and she nodded.  "I wanted you so badly I thought I'd lose my mind," he confessed, leaning in so close to her that their foreheads touched.  She rested a hand on the side of his cheek and he leaned into it, closing his eyes.  "Abby, I want this," he whispered.  "I want you.  But I'm afraid if we - "  He stopped, swallowing down some heavy, powerful emotion, and couldn't say any more.

"Please," she begged him, cradling his face in her hands, pressing a soft kiss against his mouth.  "Marcus, please."

"It's too hard, Abby," he said, pulling away from her a little and shaking his head.  "All of this.  Everything between you and me.  It's always been too hard."

"If the pardon doesn't come through -"

"It won't, Abby."

"If it doesn't come through, then this is it between us," she whispered.  "Maybe forever.  And I can't let that happen without being with you like this just once.  Having the thing that I want, just once.  Before everything falls apart."

"I don't want to make it harder to say goodbye," he said, moving a little further away from her, the words tumbling out of him in a rush as though he hadn't even planned it.  "It's already hard enough, Abby, it kills me to think about never seeing you again.  And if we do this, I'm afraid I'll never be able to let you go."

"We don't have to think about that right now," she said.  "Right now it's just you and me.  We have hours and hours.  Just you and me.  What do you want to do with that time?"

"Abby -"

"We'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow," she whispered.  "Please, Marcus.  Let's just stay here in the middle of tonight."

He hesitated, still, so she backed away from him towards the door to his bedroom.  He watched in wonder, swallowing hard, as she stepped out of her heels and unzipped her skirt, pushing it down over her hips along with her silky underwear and kicking it aside.  "I'm going to go get in your bed," she said.  "You can stay here or you can come with me.  You can do whatever you want."  She smiled at him then, her eyes alluring and full of invitation.  "Anything you want," she repeated, her voice low and enticing, and the last vestiges of his self-control snapped.

His clothes were on the floor beside hers in a heartbeat and he scooped her up - she was so small, soft, feather-light in his arms - and carried her over to the bed. 

"Tell me," he murmured as he laid her down on the soft mattress and climbed in next to her, blanketing her body with his own.  "Please, Abby.  Say it."

"I want you, Marcus," she breathed, drawing his face down to hers.  "Please."

And that was the last thing either of them said for a long time.

His mouth sank soft and yielding against hers, his body pressing her down into the mattress, suffusing her with a glorious heat.  Everywhere that his skin met her skin, Abby felt herself catch fire.  The soft brush of his beard against her cheek as he kissed her.  The way he ran his fingers through her hair as he held her face close in big, gentle hands.  The feeling of his chest against her chest, his legs tangled in her legs.  The desperate, heated pressure of the cock she was about to take inside her, pressing against her thigh like a bar of molten iron.  He'd undressed too hastily for her to get a good look at it, but she could feel how big it was, how hard and ready.

They kissed for a long time.  They had a lot of years of missed kisses to make up for, and Abby wasn't going to move on to the next stage until her hungry mouth had been sated.  He was an extraordinary kisser.  His lips were hopelessly soft and he tasted like red wine and when her mouth parted wide beneath his and she felt the first impossibly light caress of his tongue against her own, she was overtaken with a wave of pleasure so fierce she thought she might come just from this. It was sweet and slow and intoxicating, and as they sank further and further into it his hands grew bolder, slipping from her hair to her throat to her shoulders, stroking her breasts, then sliding down the softly-rounded planes of her stomach to clutch at her hips.  And then she felt her heart begin to pound in her chest as his mouth drifted from hers to kiss his way down her body, until -

 _"Marcus,"_ she gasped as his lips and tongue and beard found her aching clit and began to devour it.  He wrapped his lips around it and suckled gently for a few moments, causing her whole body to flinch and her hips to rise up off the bed, sending her further and deeper into his mouth.  It had never felt like this before.  She could feel him smiling, could feel the low buzz every time he made another soft humming moan of satisfaction, savoring her tart-sweet taste.  He stayed there for a long time, kissing and suckling, then pulling back to trace circles around her clit with his tongue or run it up and down in slow, flat strokes.  She was faint with pleasure, all panting breaths and inarticulate moaning, but he didn't stop as soon as she was wet enough for him to fuck her.  He wasn't just performing the preparatory steps, he was kissing and licking and smiling and savoring her, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of Abby's juices, and he laughed out loud in sheer delight when she came - suddenly and startlingly and entirely unexpectedly - against a particularly vigorous thrust of his tongue. 

"Good girl," he murmured, pleased, but even then he didn't stop, he kept going until the pleasure became too much for her and she came again, this time even harder, her hips rising up over and over and over as he nuzzled deeply into her, hungry and ecstatic.  In the end, she had to stop him or he would have kept going.  She reached down to lift up his head and guide him back up towards her, pulling his heavy hot body back over hers as he covered her breasts and throat with sticky kisses before meeting her lips with his own again.

He braced himself above her for a long moment, balancing his weight on his knees and forearms so he didn't crush her, and bent down to kiss her - rather unexpectedly - on the forehead.  "You are so beautiful," he whispered, and she smiled up at him - at the unkempt tangle of his hair, at the impossible warmth of his eyes - as he gently, slowly, guided himself inside her.

The first thought in Abby Griffin's mind as she felt the thick, warm weight of Marcus Kane's cock press her open and slide in deep, was - _Goddammit.  We could have been doing this for eight years._

It took her breath away, how good he felt inside her.  Neither of them were thinking about tomorrow.  Neither of them were thinking about the A.R.K. Institute or Jake Griffin or the federal penitentiary or the unsigned letter on the President's desk or the Secret Service men downstairs waiting patiently by Abby's car.  They were completely lost.  There was nothing left in the world but this, the way her thighs opened wide and her hands clutched at his back and he buried his face in her shoulder, moaning her name as their bodies rose and fell together.

She could feel him reach the edge of the cliff, could feel a powerful orgasm rising up within him, so she sped up her own movements, pulling him in deeper and deeper.  "Don't fight it," she whispered, so he didn't, coming hard and hungry inside her as she cradled him in her arms.

They lay like that for a long time before his breathing stilled and and slowed back to normal.

"Thank you," he whispered, and she smiled.

"Thank you," she whispered back.

* * * * *

Abby dozed off for a little while after that, her head pillowed on his chest. He held her close, savoring her soft skin against his own and the way her hair brushed against his chest. It should feel more disorienting than this, he thought, to have sex with your best friend.

Incredible sex.

Life-changing sex.

It should shake you up from the inside out, it should knock everything over and throw you sideways. It should dismantle you completely.

But it didn’t. It felt like this was _always_ what it should have been. It felt like they ought to have been doing this for years. It felt like the truest, rightest, realest thing he’d ever experienced in his life and it was taking everything in his power not to think about tomorrow, not to think about the fact that he wanted to do this every day from now on but he would never get to do it again.

Well. That wasn’t _quite_ true.

They did still have a few more hours.

He gently rolled Abby onto her back against the pillows. “Abby,” he murmured, and she stretched and yawned and opened her eyes to see him looking down at her.

“Hi,” she said happily, smiling sleepily up at him, and his heart cracked open. All this time, and he’d had no idea. He had never known he could feel anything like this.

“Hi,” he said, and kissed her until neither of them could breathe.

Abby was starving and hadn’t eaten anything all day, so Marcus pulled on his boxers and Abby pulled her underwear back on along with his discarded t-shirt, and they made their way back out to the kitchen to make a considerable dent in the chicken. It was cold by now, but still good, laced with a crisp lemon-rosemary tang and surrounded by savory roasted potatoes. They didn’t bother with plates or forks, just stood at the counter, bodies entangled together, picking chunks of meat off the platter with their fingers, talking and laughing. It had always been so easy to be with Abby. She had always been his safe place, his home, his true North. The world swung back into focus when she was there, and everything felt off-balance when she wasn’t.

 _Don’t,_ he told himself firmly. _Don’t think about tomorrow. Don’t ruin the time you have left._

When they’d finished eating, Abby poured herself another glass of wine and leaned back against the counter, smiling at him. Her hair had come undone, and hung in a loose tangle around her shoulders. He couldn’t restrain himself from running his hands through it, feeling it slide like a silky liquid thing between his fingers.

Abby closed her eyes. “Mmmm,” she sighed. “I like that.”

“You like it when I touch your hair?” She nodded. So he stepped in closer, taking the glass of wine from her hand and setting it down, then leaned back against the counter and pulled Abby into his arms. He ran his fingers through her hair, stroking, caressing, savoring her sweet contented sighs and the way she nestled in closer and closer against his bare chest.

“That shirt’s too big for you,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

“I should take it off, then.”

“You really should.”

So she pulled it over her head in one swift movement and then stepped back into his embrace, the hard peaks of her nipples grazing against his chest and sending little flickers of electric shock through his bloodstream. He slipped one hand around her bare back and down to cup the curves of her ass as she began to kiss his chest. The heat was rising between them, Marcus could feel it coming, but he was still startled when he felt her mouth begin to trail lower and lower until he realized she had sunk to her knees in front of him.

“Abby,” he whispered, swallowing hard, his heart pounding, and then all his words were lost completely for a long time as she slowly took hold of his cotton waistband and pulled the fabric down around his thighs, freeing his already-hardening cock to her hungry gaze.

She parted her soft rosy lips and took the very tip of his cock inside them for a light, tender kiss. He closed his eyes, gripping the kitchen counters until his knuckles turned white, desperately trying to keep his balance. “Abby,” he moaned again, and he could feel her smiling, her delight radiating outwards and soaking into his skin. She opened her mouth wider, taking in more of him, making a contented little humming sound that completely unstitched him, and then he was lost. Abby’s mouth on his cock was firm and soft at once, warm and inviting and hungry, and as she took him in deeper and deeper, harder and harder, her tongue seemingly everywhere at once, he felt himself swell towards bursting almost immediately. He let go of the counter and tangled his hands in her hair as she looked up at him, her cheeks filling and hollowing over and over as she devoured him, and then he couldn’t hold back anymore. But she was ready, and ravenous, her hands clutching at his hips as she felt him thrust and swell and burst and fill her mouth over and over as the warmth flowed down her throat. The soft wet sounds of her mouth, the quiet sighs of pleasure and satisfaction, made him shake and shudder with desire as he came and came and came, feeling himself begin to grow soft and sated inside her mouth. When she finally licked him clean and let him go, rising back up to her feet, he seized her in his arms and kissed her.

“Jesus,” he panted breathlessly when he finally let her go, “that was – you – “

“Well,” she said, “it just seems to me that if we don’t go at least a couple more rounds then we’re not really giving those Secret Service agents their money’s worth.”

He laughed. “What a job,” he said. “They’re seriously just standing out there in the street by your car?”

“One’s at the end of the hallway,” she said, “one’s on the front stoop, there’s one at either end of the block to keep any cars from coming, and Miller and his team that swept your apartment are standing in formation around the car.”

“Just waiting.”

“Yep.”

He walked over to the big bay window in the living room and drew back the curtain partway to look down at the street. . Abby followed him over to peek out over his shoulder. Sure enough, there they all were.

“Is this like those guards at Buckingham Palace?” Marcus wondered. “Where like they get fired if they react to anything or have a facial expression?”

“They wouldn’t get fired,” said Abby, “unless they were distracted and missed something. But they’re pretty hard to faze.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” said Marcus, and he moved in behind Abby, pulling the curtain open just enough to expose their nearly-naked bodies.

“What are you doing?” she laughed as he wrapped his arms around her waist and shifted both their bodies up close to the window. “If any of them look up, they’ll see us.”

He palmed both of her breasts, kneading and massaging and pinching her nipples. “Exactly,” he said. “I’m testing their professionalism.”

“By feeling me up in front of a window?”

“To start with,” he agreed, and then kissed the back of her neck as she let out a startled, sharp gasp at the feeling of his hand slipping down the front of her lacy black panties.

“They’re going to see us,” she whispered as he rubbed his fingers lightly, gently over her clit, but it wasn’t a no, because her whole body melted back against his. He caressed her breast with one hand and her clit with the other, pressing soft kisses against her hair, as they looked down at the street full of uniformed agents and watched to see if anyone would look up.

But nobody did.

Marcus shifted his fingers inside her, then, and she cried out as his thumb and forefinger pinched her clit, rubbing it in slow, lazy circles.

“Oh God,” she moaned. “Marcus, don’t stop. Oh my God, please don’t stop.”

“Take off your underwear, Abby,” he whispered, so she did. He pulled off his shorts too, and Abby could feel when he pulled her back into his arms that he was growing hard against her already.

Down in the street, the Secret Service stood patiently waiting, scanning the street with relentless focus, while one floor up above their heads, Marcus Kane’s big, powerful hand cupped Abby’s warm, wet cunt as she ground desperately back against him.

“They’re not looking at us,” observed Abby between gasps.

“Maybe we just need to give them a better show,” he murmured, and bent her forward to brace her palms against the glass, lifting her perfect ass up and back towards him. He clasped her hips in his hands, and slipped into the silken wetness of her cunt from behind.

She let out a loud, ecstatic cry as he slid deeply inside her, his hand still busily fondling and stroking her cunt. His arms were tight around her as he thrust, and she felt faint with pleasure as waves of sensation overtook her body from every direction.

The Secret Service did not look up.

“How soundproof is this glass?” asked Abby between gasping breaths. “Maybe we should make a little noise.”

“I do have neighbors,” he reminded her.

“So we’ll only be a _little_ loud,” she laughed, the sound turning into a gasp midway through as he gave one particularly firm thrust.

“I want you to be loud,” he whispered into her ear, his finger picking up speed along with the thrusts of his cock. “I want to make you scream.”

“Marcus,” she panted. “You feel so good. Oh my God, you feel so good.” He pressed in closer towards her, burying his cock deeper and deeper. “Right there,” she groaned. “Oh Jesus. Oh, Marcus. Yes. Yes. Stay right there. Right there.”

“Is this how you like it?”

“Oh God, yes, just like that,” she whimpered as he pounded harder and harder, his hand growing frantic against her clit.

The Secret Service did not look up.

“Abby, I’m going to come,” he murmured, his mouth buried against her throat beneath her ear. She nodded breathlessly, eagerly.

“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, yes.”

And then it was like the dream all over again, that curious sense of déjà vu, because the wave hit them both at the exact same time, and Abby’s wild, desperate cry echoing through the room as he groaned heavily into her was so familiar that it made him ache. He had dreamed her like this, but the reality was incomparable. The way she felt in his arms, the way her skin tasted, the way her soft wetness pulled him in, the way she shook against him as his hand and cock made her come so hard she lost her breath.

“Oh God, Marcus,” she sighed as the waves of orgasm receded and they softened against each other, sweaty and sated. He kissed her neck over and over and over in front of the open window.

The Secret Service did not look up.

* * * * *

They made their way back to bed for a little while, not sleeping - they didn't have enough time left with each other to spend any of it sleeping - but curling up in each other's arms, buried under the soft covers, foreheads bent so close together they were almost touching.

"I like this," she said, smiling, tracing light fingertips through his beard and shaggy hair.  "I didn't think I would, but I do."  He smiled and pressed a kiss against her mouth, but when he pulled away, his eyes were heavy and serious.

"What are you going to do?" he asked as she curled closer against his body, moonlight shining down on them, and she shrugged.

"I don't know," she said, her voice desolate.  "Nothing feels right."

"I don't want you missing your chance to have a good life because of something I did," he said.  "You've always loved Jake.  He makes you happy."

"What are you telling me to do?"

"I'm not telling you to do anything," he said.  "Except that you should do whatever you think is best for you and your daughter."

She turned to look at him.  "Can you give me any reason," she said, "why I shouldn't fly to London and take that A.R.K. job and move in with Clarke and Jake?"

He was silent for a long time, not sure what the right thing was to say.  "We never had good timing," he said finally, in a sad hollow voice, leaning down to kiss her shoulder, which wasn't a real answer.

"Marcus, look at me," she said, laying her hand on his face, and there were tears in her eyes.  "Look at me."

So he did. 

He looked at the rosy flush of her skin, her kiss-swollen lips, her rising and falling breasts, the tangled cloud of warm golden-brown hair spread out beneath her on the pillow.  He thought about how much strength she carried in such a small body, how big and wild her heart was, and how eight years of restraining himself from not falling in love with her had failed catastrophically at the absolute last minute, just before he would have to say goodbye to her forever.

"We shouldn't have done this," he said softly.

"I'm not sorry."  She shook her head in defiance.  "Are you?"

"No," he said.  "But it makes everything more complicated."

"I don't care," she said.  "I'm glad we did it."

"Then why are you crying?" he asked her in a warm low voice, reaching down to brush the tears out of her eyes.

She couldn't say it. Not now, when it would make everything worse.  There was no point in saying it.  It would only break both their hearts more thoroughly than they'd be broken already.  How could she let him go off to prison to spend the rest of her life alone after she'd told him that she loved him?  It was unspeakably cruel.  She could never do that to him.  This would have to be a thing she never, ever said out loud.

"Abby," he murmured again.  "Why are you crying?"

"Wasted time," was all she said.


	11. Internal Displacement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “'I don’t want to sound cocky,' said Lorelei, 'but I doubt you’ve had a more interesting job offer today.'  
> 'I haven’t had a more interesting job offer since I took this one,' said Abby."

** **

**FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2017 – 3:15 P.M.**

**WHITE HOUSE ROOSEVELT ROOM**

“Dr. Tsing,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

“Not a problem.”

“It’s a little bit of a crazy week, as I’m sure you can imagine,” she said, motioning the other woman to sit as she took the chair beside her.

“I believe it,” Dr. Tsing said, smiling. “You must be fielding job offers left and right.”

“I am, in fact,” she said. “And I’m sure yours is very compelling.”

“But you’ve already decided you’re going to say no.”

“It’s nothing personal,” she assured her. “I’ve just been hearing the same pitch over and over for months – you want to put me on your board of directors and pay me an exorbitant salary to show up for meetings like two hours a month and lend you my expertise on media relations.”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” the woman observed, and Abby looked up at her sharply, a little startled. Lorelei Tsing was going off script.

“No,” she agreed. “It really doesn’t. You got a better offer for me?”

“I do.”

“What?”

“Menstruation.”

She stared blankly. “I beg your pardon?”

“How do you feel about it?”

“Well, I wouldn't say I'm _wildly_ in favor, but I have a kid so I’ve accepted it as sort of the necessary cost of doing business, though I have to say I do feel a little wary of having this conversation in the Roosevelt Room –“

“18% of girls and women in Rwanda missed out on school and work last year because they couldn’t buy feminine hygiene products,” she said. “It puts a dent of $115 million in the country’s GDP every year.”

Abby sat back and looked at her. “All right, I’ll bite,” she said. “Why is the third wealthiest healthcare CEO in the United States sitting across from me talking about women’s healthcare in Rwanda?”

“Because we’re going to fix it,” said Dr. Tsing. “You and me.”

“Dr. Tsing –“

“Two-thirds of girls’ schools in India don’t have a functioning toilet,” she interrupted Abby. “Not one. There are girls in sub-Saharan Africa having sex for money to be able to afford sanitary pads. When they can’t afford them, they use newspaper and leaves and rags. Risking dangerous infections either way. For the cost of a $6 pack of Kotex you could get at any bodega on this block.”

"There aren't a lot of bodegas on Pennsylvania Avenue, Dr. Tsing."

"You know what I mean."

“We’ve explored this issue before,” Abby began carefully, “and believe me, I understand that it’s a problem. We’ve run into a number of challenges getting women’s healthcare education tacked onto foreign aid bills – mostly the stigma in male-dominated governments – and State decided it wasn’t worth the tradeoff of Congress attaching a global gag rule and roping in abortion restrictions if we tried to push expanding care for women. So if you’re looking for a lobbyist –“

“I’m not.”

“Then – I’m sorry, forgive me, Dr. Tsing, but if you’re not asking me to join the board of your company and you’re not asking for my services as a lobbyist then I’m not sure –“

“I’m starting a foundation,” said Dr. Tsing. “I want you to run it.”

“You what?”

“70% of girls in developing nations have so little access to education about their reproductive systems that they have no idea what’s happening to them the first time they menstruate,” said Dr. Tsing.  "They’re subjected to discrimination and violence. If they can’t get supplies, they have to miss school for a week out of every month, in countries where just getting girls’ schools open in the first place is an uphill battle. Sometimes they give up and drop out. By the thousands, Abby. Or they get fired for missing work. Women and girls all over the world are being beaten and stigmatized and harassed, they’re being forced out of schools and jobs, because they have no idea how their bodies work and they can’t afford to buy tampons. That’s all it would take. Just money, and one visionary leader who knows how to spend it. It’s the world’s most solvable problem, Abby, and I want to give you ten billion dollars to fix it.”

Abby stared.

“Ten billion dollars.”

“Yes.”

“ _Ten billion dollars_ for a global women’s health initiative that I could spend however I want.”

“That’s right.”

She shook her head. “You don’t want me on this,” she said. “You need a policy wonk.  I’m happy to advise you on working with the press but this is a cultural relations problem as much as anything, Dr. Tsing.”

“I just offered you a ten billion dollar pot of gold,” she said, “I think you can call me Lorelei.”

“Lorelei,” said Abby. “Look. This is a problem of social stigma as much as it is money. It’s that governments won’t talk about it because _men_ won't talk about it. It’s literally going to need to be a global campaign to rebrand menstruation.”

“Yeah,” said Lorelei. “It is.”

“You don’t want me on this,” she said, shaking her head, the words tumbling out before she could catch them, "you want Marcus Kane."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“I don’t want to sound tacky,” said Lorelei, “but he is, as far as I know, still on his way to a low-security federal penitentiary on treason charges by the end of this month.”

Abby couldn't look at her.  "Yes," she said softly.  "He is."

“Of course, this is round about the time presidential pardons usually get handed down,” Lorelei observed, “as the old administration’s on its way out.”

“Yes,” Abby agreed carefully, desperately regretting that she'd brought this up, “it is, in fact, almost exactly that time.”

“I didn’t get where I am today by giving too many fucks what people think of me,” said Lorelei pleasantly, instantly ratcheting up about twelve rungs in Abby’s esteem, “and quite frankly, if we’re being honest with each other, in exchange for the political heft of somebody like Marcus Kane driving our communications strategy – especially because the optics would be killer, being able to strategically deploy a male politician to break down the stigma with other male politicians – I couldn’t care less if he comes with a little whiff of scandal attached to him.”

“That’s good.”

“It kind of makes me like him better, to be honest,” added Lorelei. “If you don’t mind me saying so in this building. There’s a lot of people out there who think it was pretty much bullshit that Marcus Kane got charged with treason and Charles Pike didn't.  I signed the petition, as a matter of fact.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well.  Thank you for that, on his behalf.”

“I know he broke the law, I know there have to be consequences, I get that. But if leaking the location of that base was the only way to save those soldiers, well, then, maybe there are times when treason’s justified. Which I recognize might be a problematic thing to say while I’m sitting a few hundred feet from the Oval Office,” she added dryly. “I haven’t forgotten what building I’m in. That being said, Marcus Kane always seemed to me like a good man.”

“Yes,” Abby said softly. “He’s a very good man.”

“Well then, if I should happen to hear any news of a presidential pardon with his name on it,” said Lorelei, smiling, “you can be sure I’ll have a job ready for him.  Right next to you."

Abby’s head snapped up again, staring.  “What?”

“We still want you,” said Lorelei. “Adding Marcus Kane wouldn't change that. Kane has the policy and communications expertise, and he’s always been one hell of a diplomat, but you’ve spent eight years as the face of the Bartlet administration and you know the issues inside and out. You were this White House's most prominent advocate for women’s reproductive rights and you’re the leader we want for this campaign. With both of you, we’d be unstoppable.”

Abby stared. “Ten billion dollars to team up with Marcus Kane and save women all over the world,” she said.

“I don’t want to sound cocky,” said Lorelei, “but I doubt you’ve had a more interesting job offer today.”

“I haven’t had a more interesting job offer since I took this one,” said Abby. “Where’s your office?”

“Wherever you want it to be,” said Lorelei agreeably. “Where does your daughter want to live?”

“Here.”

“Then it’s here.  Or anywhere you and she and Marcus Kane decide. It’s your show, Abby. You want to stay in the White House, take a tedious advisory gig for Santos, that’s fine. Or you want to go to London and sit behind a desk at A.R.K. - yes, I know about that, I did my homework - you can do that too.  But when I look at you, I see a woman - and the mother of a woman - who both grew up with a lot of advantages, and you’ve spent your whole career watching women all over the world trying to get by without any of them, and I’m handing you the chance to do something about it.” She stood then, set a business card down in front of Abby, and made her way to the door.

“I’m going to think about this and get back to you,” said Abby. “Thank you.”

“Don’t think too long,” said Lorelei. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

"Don't hang your hopes on Marcus Kane," said Abby suddenly, and Lorelei stopped and turned back to look at her.  "The President's not going to sign the letter," she said numbly, trying not to cry in front of this near-stranger who had just offered her the perfect life she could never have. 

"He's still the president for seven more days, right?" said Lorelei.

"Right."

"Then it seems like you're seven days too early to give up just yet," she told Abby, and closed the door behind her.


	12. Game On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'I’m gonna have to do the grand romantic gesture thing, aren’t I?'  
> 'Yeah,' she said. 'You’re gonna have to do the grand romantic gesture thing.'"

**THURSDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 2017 - 9:35 A.M.**

**LAST DAY OF THE BARTLET ADMINISTRATION**

**WHITE HOUSE MURAL ROOM**

Clarke had been twelve when her mother was hired at the White House, and by this point everyone in the building, from the mess hall staff to the security guards, knew her by name; which meant she breezed right in with a visitor's pass and a smile, even though the building was in utter chaos.  The final 24 hours of the Bartlet presidency were causing a strange kind of uneven havoc, with half the staff running around frantically finishing up the last ten thousand things on their lists, and the other half wandering around in a stupor with nothing to do.

Mom had left a pile of thank-you cards and gifts on the dining room table that she hadn't had the chance to hand out before her last day at the office.  And, since she was currently waiting to board her flight to London, it had fallen to Clarke to do it.

They'd had a strange, tense conversation in the car on the way to the airport, Clarke asking her for the ten thousandth time why she couldn't push back her flight three more damn days to see President Santos get sworn in and go party it up at the Inaugural Ball, and Mom once more giving the same vague answer about needing to meet Dad first thing Saturday morning to sign the papers for their new London house.  It was clearly not the whole truth, and there was obviously something - or someone - she was avoiding, but she drove with that tense, straight-ahead stare that meant she wasn't going to say any more than she'd already said, so Clarke sighed and left it alone. 

She'd managed to locate everyone but Jackson, who was scrambling around with some last-minute filing for the new Press Secretary's first briefing, when she passed the Mural Room on her way out and stopped short.

"Marcus?" she said, startled, and he turned away from the window to look at her.

"Clarke!" he exclaimed, and his face lit up in a huge smile.  "What are you doing here?"

"Running errands for Mom," she said.  "What are you doing here?"

"The President asked to see me," he said, a little uncomfortably, and she nodded, not pressing any more.

The President had received Marcus Kane's pardon - the one he hadn't asked for, hadn't wanted, had expressly told Abby Griffin not to put on his desk - but there was no way to know whether or not he had signed it, or how angry he still was, or how uncomfortable this meeting was about to be.  "Well, I won't keep you, then," she said, turning to leave.

"No, stay," he said.  "If you have a few minutes.  Indra says he's running late.  Are you in a hurry?"

"Nope."

"Sit," he said, taking one of the couches, and she plopped into a chair across from him.

"When do you leave for London?" he asked.

"Thursday."

"You excited?"

"Yeah. And nervous," she admitted.

He smiled.  "Sure."

"Dad’s already there, so that helps."

"Whole family back together again," said Marcus, in a casual tone that didn't quite fool her.

"Yeah."

"Must be nice."

She hesitated.  "I guess," she said slowly, tricked as she always was by Marcus Kane - as everyone was - into telling the truth, into resisting shallow falsehoods, into an inability to just deliver the expected dialogue in social situations, into a desire to say something real.

He cocked his head and examined her thoughtfully, his eyes puzzled.  "What do you mean?"

"I’d feel differently if it wasn’t for the job, you know?"

"What job?"

"Mom’s job," she explained.  "This isn’t what she wants."

Marcus leaned back against the couch and sighed a little.  "It’s what she _said_ she wants," he observed.

"Yeah, but I think she only took it because of Dad."

"Well, that’s a compelling enough reason on its own, don’t you think?"

Clarke shook her head.  "You know her better than almost anyone, Marcus," she said, "you really think she’ll be happy running the A.R.K. Institute? You think that’s what she wants?"

"I didn’t, no," he shrugged.  "But she had three sure things on the table and she said yes to that one, so –"

"Two," Clarke corrected him.

"What?"

" _Two_ sure things. London and the Santos campaign."

"And the women’s healthcare initiative."

Clarke stared at him.  "And the what?"

"Women's healthcare," he repeated.  "I got a call from Lorelei Tsing from Sky Heath Services.  She's putting up ten billion dollars to solve the problem of insufficient menstrual care for women in developing nations and asked your mom to run it."

"Oh my God."

"With me.  Or, it _would_ have been with me, if I wasn't, you know.  On my way to jail."

"Oh my _God,_ Marcus."

"Yeah."

"That’s _amazing_ ," Clarke exclaimed.

"Yeah."

"That’s . . . Jesus, that’s _perfect_ for her. She’d be saving people’s _lives."_

'I know."

"They get beaten sometimes, did you know that?  Girls, I mean.  By their dads or brothers or husbands. If they bleed on the floor or something.  I took a Women's Studies class at Georgetown and we spent a month on low-income healthcare."

"I know," he said.  "It’s the kind of job offer people like her dream about. Real work that matters. The chance to find a problem that can be fixed, and fix it."

"And she said _no_?" Clarke was baffled.

So was Marcus.  "I can’t think why she didn’t tell you about this," he said, and there was something in his tone that snapped Clarke to attention.  The penny dropped, and she stared at him, suddenly understanding.

"I know why," she announced firmly.  "Because she knew I’d talk her into it."

"Why would -"

"No time, Marcus," she said.  "Come on. Let’s go."

"Where are we going?"

"The airport."

"Why?"

"Because she didn’t tell me about the job," said Clarke matter-of-factly, as though this made all the sense in the world, and was out the door so quickly that Marcus had to jump up and follow her.

"Clarke, I don’t –"

"It’s the perfect job for her," Clarke said as they made their way down the halls.  "You know it, I know it, she must have known it, but she didn’t tell me. Which means it’s about more than just the job."

"Clarke –"

"It’s not going to work out, between her and Dad," said Clarke, stopping him in his tracks.  "It never does.  They love each other but it just doesn’t work."

"That’s not for us to say," he corrected her gently.

"It _is_ for us to say, Marcus," she retorted stubbornly, "we’re the people that love her. You love her."

A long, long pause.  Then, "Yes," he said in a low voice.

"You’re _in love_ with her."

"Clarke, she made her choice," he said, "I can’t –"

"What did she say, the last time she saw you?" she asked him.  "That night she spent at your apartment."

"How did you -"

"What did she say, Marcus?"

"She asked me if I thought there was any reason why she should say no to London," said Marcus, "and I said that she needed to do whatever she thought was right for her, and for you."  Clarke said nothing, but thumped her head over and over against the wall in exasperation.  "What?" he exclaimed, annoyed.  "What did I do?"

"You played the do-what's-best-for-your-daughter card," she said, her voice still muffled by wall.  "Goddammit, Marcus."

"It wasn't a card.  There's no card."

"If I had a frying pan I would smack you on the head with it."

"Well, thank God we’re in a hallway."

She looked up at him then and sighed, exasperated.  "You basically just told her to put what she thinks I want over what she wants," she pointed out.  "You told her to go with her kid’s father to London and put her family back together.   Which is the same as telling her you’re not interested.  What do you think it says to her, about how much she means to you, that you could have had a chance to save yourself from this but you didn't even _try_?"

"I'm going to _prison_ , Clarke, I can't ask her to -"

"You're an idiot," she said.  "Why would the President call you here on the last day of his presidency if he wasn't going to sign that letter?"

His face looked stricken.

"I just wanted –" he began, then stopped.  She placed her hand on his arm.

"I don’t need the divorced kid’s fairy tale, Marcus," she told him gently.  "I don’t need my parents magically reunited if that's not actually going to make them happy. You don’t have to do that. You’re both adults and you should just ask for what you really want."  She leaned back against the doorframe of her mother's office - now bare - and looked at Marcus, arms folded across her chest.  "What do you want?" she asked him.

"I want to fix global women’s healthcare and I want to marry your mother."

"About goddamn time you said it," Clarke grinned.  "The President can wait, Marcus.  This can't."

"I’m gonna have to do the grand romantic gesture thing, aren’t I?"

"Yeah," she said. "You’re gonna have to do the grand romantic gesture thing."

"If you’re going after Abby, you’ll never make it," said Jackson, entering from behind them and startling them both.  Clarke stared.

"What do you mean?"

"There’s a six-car pileup on the airport freeway exit," he explained.  "Traffic’s backed up either direction for ten miles."

 _"Goddammit,"_ said Marcus fiercely.

"Is he going after Abby?" asked Jackson excitedly.

"Okay, did _everyone_ put this together before I did?"

"What’s going on?" said Bellamy, popping his head around the door.  "I heard shouting."

"Oh good, Bellamy’s here," said Marcus, sighing in exasperation.

"Marcus is going after Mom," said Clarke.

_"Finally."_

"That’s what I said."

"Freeway’s a mess, though," he added.

"I already told them."

"He’ll never get through in time."

"I already told them."

"When is she boarding?" asked Jackson.

Clarke checked her watch.  "Thirty-five minutes."

"Can they hold it?"

Marcus stared at Jackson.  "You want us to hold a plane full of passengers –"

"You’re friends with the FAA commissioner, can’t you –"

"I’m not calling the FAA commissioner –"

"Well, it’s going to take you two hours to get there if you don’t.  You’ll show up just in time to wave at her as she’s enjoying her beverage service."

"Guys," said Clarke.

"Get your GPS app out," said Bellamy, "if we skip the highway –"

"That won’t help –"

"And take surface streets –"

"Guys," said Clarke again.

"He’ll still never make it, not in thirty-five minutes."

"Can the National Guard do anything?"

"I can get my guy on the phone, see if they can –"

" _Guys_ ," said Clarke a third time, in a sharp, pointed voice, and they finally stopped arguing to look up as the figure standing in the doorway of Jackson’s office cleared his throat.

"Is Marcus calling up the National Guard to get a girl back again?" said President Josiah Bartlet, with an amused grin on his face. “What is that, the third time this week?"

"Well, I stick with what works," he said, with an uncertain half-smile.  "It’s . . . it's good to see you again, sir," he added, after a long moment.

"I was told we had a meeting," said President Bartlet, "and I had intended to do this in private, but you appear to be in the midst of a very interesting little one-act play over here and I don't want to ruin the fun."  And he placed a thick vellum envelope, marked with the seal of the President of the United States, into Marcus Kane's hand.  "I've been staring at this letter every day for weeks," he said, "going over it and over it in my head.  And in the end I realized that the only thing that matters is that seven fathers are back home safely with their children right now because you did something I wasn't brave enough to do."  Marcus couldn't look at him, and the others suddenly felt themselves intruding upon a deeply private moment between two deeply private men.  "And I couldn't live with myself," he went on, "if I let you spend the rest of your life in prison for that."

"Sir, I didn't - you didn't have to -"

"I know," he said.  "You didn't ask.  You were never going to ask.  You might be braver than me, but Abby Griffin is braver than all of us."  He took Marcus Kane's hand and shook it, warmly, affectionately, and a damaged thing clicked back into place and was suddenly right again. 

"Anyway, said the President in a lighter tone, "I couldn’t help overhearing the sound of federal employees loudly shouting about commandeering public resources as I happened down the hallway, and while I know it’s the last day of school and everyone's ready for summer vacation, I am still the president for twenty-four more hours, so I thought I’d just drop by to see if you could at least plot your coup d’etat at a somewhat less aggressive volume."

"Wait," said Clarke suddenly. "We don’t need to use the freeway."

"What?"

"What?"

"Mr. President," she said, turning to him suddenly.  "I need a favor."

"Well, ask it quick, young lady.  They’re coming in at 5 a.m. tomorrow to pack up my pens and stapler, and I run out of favors to give the second Matt Santos gets sworn in."

"Unless the favor involves long, boring lectures on the history of the United States Park Service or the National Mint," added Bellamy, "in which case –"

A bit less out of you, there, thank you very much," said the President crisply, as Clarke shook her head.

"It’s not that kind of a favor," said Clarke.

"What kind is it?"

"It’s the kind," she said, eyes shining with excitement, "that means we need to borrow your helicopter."

* * *

**THURSDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 2017 - 9:50 A.M.**

**MARINE ONE  
**

Jackson and Bellamy split up to go put out some fires with the President's social secretary while he and Marcus left to wrangle the Secret Service detail into completely rearranging their daily itinerary to tag along on an impromptu Marine One field trip.  Clarke made her way through the White House and out the back door onto the lawn, frantically trying to reach her mother.  She tried three times with no answer before steeling herself and bringing in the big guns.  It was time for the nuclear option.

He answered on the first ring.  "Clarke!"

"Dad, we need to talk."

"Why does it sound like there's a helicopter right next to you?"

"Because there's a helicopter right next to me."

"What the hell are you doing hanging out next to the President's helicopter?"

"She can't get on that plane, Dad," said Clarke, and it silenced him completely.  "I'm sorry," she went on, "I'm so sorry.  But it's not what she wants.  She thinks it's what _I_ want.  She's doing this for me.  But I just - I want you both to be happy, and this isn't it, Dad, this isn't what she wants.  You _know_ it isn't what she wants."

"Clarke," he said carefully.  "Your mom and me - look, I get that it doesn't look like - I can see where - but she's always been my best friend, and we talked it over and we decided if there was a chance we might be able to -"

"The President signed the letter," said Clarke.  "This morning."  Silence.  "Dad, you still there?"

"I'm still here.  I just -"  He paused.  "He signed the letter?  Marcus Kane got a Presidential pardon?  And she _still_ went to the airport?  Why would she -"

"Because nobody can reach her," said Clarke.  "She doesn't know."

Jake let out a deep breath.  "Okay, kiddo," he said.  "Start at the beginning.  Tell me everything."

So she did.

She told him about visiting Marcus, about the way he was so careful never to bring up her mother, as though he was afraid of giving something away, though he asked after Jake all the time.  She told him about the night Mom spent at Marcus' apartment last week that she wasn't supposed to know about, how she'd come home at two a.m. so quietly that Clarke didn't hear the taxi or the door and only woke up when she heard the sound of Abby sobbing in the kitchen, how Clarke had tiptoed out to the hallway and watched in pained horror as her mother braced her hands on the marble counter and wept, deep gulping sobs that seemed to come from all the way down in the deepest part of her soul, how Clarke had wanted to go put her arms around her and tell her it would be okay but was afraid to because there was something so dark and private in those tears, how this was a moment Clarke was not supposed to witness, so instead she just wiped the tears from her own eyes and went silently back to bed.  And she told him about the women's healthcare job, which Mom hadn't told anybody about, not Jake or Marcus or Jackson or even Clarke, because she knew that every single person who cared about her would tell her to take it and she didn't want to admit that she would rather say no to the job of a lifetime than say yes to something Marcus was supposed to share with her, but couldn't, because he was stuck in a federal prison.  And she told him that she loved her parents, and she knew how much they loved each other, but everyone here was an adult and somebody needed to say out loud what they all knew: that neither the A.R.K. Institute nor Jake were what Abby really, truly wanted.

Jake was silent a long time.  He was silent long enough for the helicopter to land and the President and his Secret Service detail to climb into the cabin, followed by Jackson, Bellamy, Marcus and herself (all four of them squashed in the back like kids on a family road trip).

The pilot closed the doors, muffling the infernal din of the engine, and Jake asked, "Are you in the helicopter?"

"Yeah."

"All of you?"

"Yeah."

"Put Marcus on the phone."

"What?"

"Put him on the phone, Clarke."

So she pulled the phone away from her ear and handed it to Marcus.  "My dad wants to talk to you," she said, and even the Secret Service guys' eyes widened a little at this unexpected turn of events - though nobody looked more surprised than Marcus.  But he took the phone from Clarke's outstretched hand.

"Don't screw up," said the President helpfully from the front seat.

"Yes, thank you, sir, that's good advice," said Marcus. 

"Put him on speakerphone!" said Bellamy excitedly.  Clarke smacked him on the head.

"Hi, Jake," said Marcus, picking up the phone.

"Marcus.  Good.  Okay.  Listen -"

"No, Jake, before you say anything," said Marcus urgently, cutting him off, "you have to know - there was never anything between - I mean, while you guys were - I would never -"

"Oh, for God's sake, Marcus, of _course_ there wasn't," said Jake impatiently.  "Come on.  I'm not that guy."

"Then what -"

"Here's the deal," said Jake.  "We've got to keep Abby off that plane."

Marcus stared down at the phone in his hand. _"'We?'"_ he said incredulously.

"How far away are you?"

"Pilot says fifteen minutes."

"She's boarding in twelve, Marcus."

"I know.  There was a holdup with Secret Service paperwork, we left later than we wanted -"

"Okay, listen," said Jake, "I'm going to try and stall her."

"Clarke tried her cell three times, she's not answering."

"Of course she's not.  She always switches into airplane mode before boarding because she's paranoid she'll forget once she's on the plane and then her cell phone will interfere with the navigational systems.  You know that."

"We could try paging her at the gate."

"I'll do it," said Jake.  "She'll pick up if it's me.  And you need to spend the next few minutes prepping your grand romantic speech."

"Oh, God."

"Anyone else in that helicopter sort of feeling like we landed in the middle of a terrible romantic comedy?"

"I suspect, all of us," said Marcus. 

"I feel like the Phil Collins cover of 'Can't Hurry Love' should be playing in the background."

"Oh, can you not hear it?  The President's blasting it on the radio."

Jake laughed.  It was a warm laugh, and it carried a lot of things inside it.  There was a little bit of sadness, but also kindness, and wonder, and mischievous amusement, and an affection for Abby that ran so deeply in his bones that it had somehow, inexplicably, expanded itself to cover Marcus too.

"I cannot believe," said Jake, "that on your very first day as a free man you _commandeered the President's helicopter_."

"I don't know it really counts as commandeering if he's in it with me."

"You commandeered the _President._   And the Deputy Communications Director.  And the Senior Assistant to the Press Secretary.  And the Secret Service.  And my daughter."

"Jake -"

"I just want her to be happy," said Jake, and Marcus could hear the emotion in his voice.

"I know."

"She needs to take that job.  You both do."

"You're a good guy, Jake."

I know," Jake sighed. "It's a blessing and a curse." Marcus laughed.  "Okay," said Jake, "Time's up.  I've got to go be an enormous inconvenience to my ex-wife, and you need to start working on your speech."

"I don't want to be rude," said Marcus dryly, "but I do feel like it needs to be said that I'm still in the midst of the fallout from the _last_ time you and I concocted an elaborate secret plan together."

Jake burst out laughing, so loud that everyone in the helicopter could hear him, and after a moment, all of them (well, except the Secret Service) were laughing too.

"I really like you, Marcus Kane," said Jake.  "Come to London soon so I can buy you a drink."

"I like you too," said Marcus, his heart full to overflowing.  He caught Clarke's eye just then, some complicated tangle of emotions shining out of her eyes, and something passed between them - a steady and silent knowledge that after all the suffering they'd been through, everything was going to be all right again.

"I'm hanging up now," said Jake.  "Now go get our girl, so she can come home and save the world."


	13. Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She thought about the Lincoln Memorial in the snow and she thought about President Bartlet’s last State of the Union and she thought about Rosslyn, Virginia and she thought about the feeling of Marcus Kane’s beard sending shivers down her spine when he kissed her throat and she closed her eyes for a long, long time, gripping the frozen metal railing so tight her knuckles went white with the strain. _You have to stop thinking about him,_ she told herself firmly, _or you will not be able to get on that plane._ "

  **THURSDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 2017 - 10:10 A.M.**

**PRIVATE JET LANDING TARMAC, WASHINGTON-DULLES AIRPORT  
**

 She’d packed light.

Everything she owned was piled in boxes in the living room of her Georgetown apartment, except for one suitcase and her carry-on bag. It made her feel oddly disoriented, after eight years, to be uprooting herself again for a new place. She’d hoped – and she knew Clarke had hoped – that when they’d come to Washington they’d arrived to stay. And while she’d expected to like the city, she hadn’t expected it to feel so much like home. She hadn’t expected it to be quite this hard to leave.

But of course, it wasn’t home anymore, because the person who had made it a home had left it forever and she would never see him again, which meant that there was nothing keeping her here but Clarke. And if Clarke wanted to live in London, that’s what Abby would do.

She cared about Jake. She always had. She wasn’t, maybe, in love with him anymore the way she’d once been, but she was also forty-something years old and tired of being alone and the thought of coming home at the end of the day to someone who made her feel comfortable and safe was undeniably appealing, and who knows. Maybe they would find it again.

Maybe, in time, she’d be able to move on. Maybe a day would come when it wouldn’t hurt so much.

She was astonished by the force of the emotional response this thought generated inside her heart. She didn’t _want_ it to stop hurting, she realized. She didn’t _want_ it to get better with time. Because that would mean she was forgetting. That would mean Marcus Kane was fading away.

What did people _do_ in these situations? When remembering was excruciating but forgetting felt like a betrayal?

How did people ever go on?

“Ms. Griffin,” said a polite voice at her elbow, as a uniformed flight attendant approached her from the front desk of the lavishly-appointed waiting area for passengers waiting to board private jets. “We’re ready for you now.”

“Thank you,” she said, handing the man her boarding pass. The A.R.K. Institute had sent their CEO’s plane to Washington-Dulles to fetch her, and she could see it parked outside, the door standing open, waiting for her. She passed through the gate and stepped out onto the top of the flight of stairs leading down to the tarmac, breathing in the cold January air of Washington D.C., and she suddenly wanted to cry.

She could just make out the Washington Monument off in the distance, its expanse of dazzling white unbroken against the gray sky save for the small dark speck of a far-off helicopter. She looked at the white obelisk for a long time. She thought about the Lincoln Memorial in the snow and she thought about President Bartlet’s last State of the Union and she thought about Rosslyn, Virginia and she thought about the feeling of Marcus Kane’s beard sending shivers down her spine when he kissed her throat and she closed her eyes for a long, long time, gripping the frozen metal railing so tight her knuckles went white with the strain.

 _You have to stop thinking about him,_ she told herself firmly, _or you will not be able to get on that plane._

And Jake and Clarke wanted her to get on that plane, which meant that was what she had to do.

She steeled herself, breathing in, swallowing the tears, and decided it would be better to ease into it. So she made her way down the cold metal staircase, wind whipping at her coat and scarf and hair, with infinite slowness, staring down at her feet. It was the only way not to catch a glimpse of the D.C. skyline and feel her heart break all over again.

She listened instead. She turned off her mind and just soaked in the airport sounds. It was comforting. Airport sounds were generic, they didn’t mean anything, they were the same everywhere you went. There was nothing here to remind her of painful things. She could hear planes taking off and the babble of voices and that helicopter getting closer and the intercom behind her saying things like “Final boarding for flight 221 to Budapest." She looked down at her feet. _One foot, then the other, Abby,_ she commanded herself, watching her shoes make their way down the metal stairs. _Look down at the ground. Don’t look up at the sky. Just think about intercoms and helicopters and forget everything else._

She made it down the stairs and across the tarmac this way, breathing hard, exhausted, as though she’d accomplished some monumental feat. Which she had, in a way. She had left Washington D.C. behind her. She was about to step onto the plane that was going to take her away forever.

And so – because it couldn’t make a difference now, because she’d already done the hard thing, because everything was already over – as the uniformed attendant helped her up the steps, she paused for a moment at the top, and she looked back in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial, and she felt her eyes sting with tears as she sent a silent goodbye to Marcus Kane.

And then her heart stopped beating, as the helicopter that had been nothing more than a speck five minutes ago suddenly and astonishingly descended into view, and she watched in utter shock as it landed on the tarmac beside her plane.

“What the hell?” exclaimed the flight attendant. “They can’t do that! We can’t take off if there’s a helicopter on the ground.”

“I think that was the idea,” Abby whispered, astonishment overtaking her entire body, as she abruptly realized just which helicopter this was.

And who was on it.

The Secret Service stepped out first, forming a perimeter around the cabin doors so the President could step out.

“Holy shit,” breathed the flight attendant. “Is that –“

“Yes, it is,” Abby said, still reeling from shock after shock. “What the –“

But the sight of the President getting out of his helicopter was nothing compared to the sight of her _daughter_ getting out of the President’s helicopter, followed – inexplicably – by Jackson and Bellamy. Abby was struck with a sudden panic that something terrible had happened, that there was an emergency of some kind, that Clarke was here to deliver bad news, and was halfway down the airplane steps to sprint across the tarmac to her when she froze, unable to move, unable to speak or even breathe, as Marcus Kane stepped out of Marine One.

They just stood there for a moment, looking at each other over the tarmac – Marcus in the doorway of the helicopter and Abby on the stairs with the jet behind her. Finally, Marcus made his way towards her, and she found herself pulled with a force stronger than gravity down the stairs to meet him.

“I’m sorry for the theatrics,” he said, a little wryly, gesturing at the helicopter and the four people standing next to it in the middle of a phalanx of Secret Service officers. “But there wasn’t any other way to reach you. And I had something to say that I needed you to hear before you got on that plane. Three things, actually,” he corrected himself. “Just three things. And then if you want to go to London I won’t stop you.”

“Marcus,” she breathed in astonishment, _“how are you here?”_

“Well, that’s the first thing,” he said, handing over the thick vellum envelope with the Seal of the President. She stared down at the letter, then up at him. “You offered me forgiveness I didn’t ask for,” he said. “I was stubborn, and I was arrogant and proud, and I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t realize what it meant, until it was too late. What it meant that you would do this for me.”

“Marcus –“

“He signed the letter,” said Marcus. “All charges absolved. I’m a free man. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that I’m taking the job for Lorelei Tsing, and I want you to come with me. And so does Clarke. And so does Jake. And so does everyone who cares about you. Take the job that makes you happy, Abby. You only have one life, and you should spend it doing work that matters.” And then he stepped in very close to her, and brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, and laid his hand against her cheek. “And the third thing,” he murmured softly, “is that I want to ask you to spend the rest of that one life with me.”

She stared up at him.

“Marcus, are you –“

“I don’t have a ring,” he said a little apologetically. “This was all kind of on the fly.”

“Did you kidnap the President of the United States so you could come here and propose to me?”

“If we’re going by whose idea this was,” he said, “then technically Clarke kidnapped him.”

“Clarke?”

“And Jake was a co-conspirator,” he said. “He was in charge of trying to stall you. And then, well, the Secret Service guys we were kind of stuck with, you know, they came with the helicopter. And Bellamy and Jackson kind of just tagged along for the ride.”

“Marcus, _what_ – “

“They’re coming with us, by the way,” he added.

“Who’s coming where?”

“Jackson and Bellamy,” he said, smiling. “They’re our first two new hires.”

Abby’s complete and utter astonishment knew no bounds, but all the questions echoing in her mind were emphatically silenced just then, as Marcus cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.

Her mouth fell open instantly beneath his, her arms wrapping around his back. The cold January wind tugged at her scarf and hair, sharp with the possibility of snow, but inside Marcus Kane’s arms it was warm. His lips were soft and there was something pleading in them, as though the kiss itself were asking the question, and she kissed her own answer back.

“I don’t know how to not be in love with you, Abby Griffin,” he said, pulling away, resting his forehead against hers. “I held out as long as I could. But I can’t do it anymore. I love you. I always have. I’ll never stop. Please,” he murmured, his hands cupping her cheeks. “Please. I’m begging you. Don’t get on that plane.”

She smiled at him, shaking her head in disbelief. “You got yourself _shot_ ,” she said, “and then _arrested_ , and then you _stole the President’s helicopter_. When are you going to stop trying to be a hero to get my attention?”

“I promise,” he said solemnly, his eyes twinkling at her, “this is the last stupid thing I’ll ever do.”

“You sure?” she asked dubiously. “You really promise?”

“I do,” he said, his voice low and full of emotion.

“Then I do too,” she said, and his face lit up like the sun was rising as he bent his head to kiss her.

They stood there in the middle of the tarmac, arms wrapped around each other, as the rest of the world burst into sudden activity all around them. The head of the Secret Service detail went to go put out some fires with air traffic control, while Bellamy appeased the puzzled and irritated flight attendant and Clarke helped Jackson unload Abby’s bags from the plane. But Abby didn’t notice any of it. The entire world had shrunk down to the side of these two square feet of windswept, freezing pavement and the man standing inside them who she'd been in love with for longer than she could possibly remember. She noticed nothing until a hand tapped her shoulder, and she pulled away to see President Bartlet standing patiently at her side.

“As delighted as I am that you won’t be getting onto that plane and leaving us,” he said, “if I’m not back in the West Wing in forty-seven minutes to have my picture taken with the President-Elect there are no words for the magnitude of the public relations scandal we will all have inadvertently caused. Can I persuade you both to pause for breath and resume inside the helicopter, to avoid tainting the legacy of this presidential transition before it has even taken place?”

Abby smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

“I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States."


End file.
